Where has that week gone?? I have become besotted by a mystery in the Geelong Gallery. Last Monday I attended a meeting for guides and one of the guides gave a small lecture about a marble statue entitled I am Alone attributed to Hortense Heuze Hazard 1871. The sculpture is rather lovely and the marble has a silvery sheen to it, and the work seems to be in the style of Canova, which was popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century.The inscription on the statue in Italian says:
Piancete al cante mio
voi che intendete amore
piancete al mio dolore
che sola aime son io.
However I can find little information on Hortense Heuze Hazard . And the historian in me loves nothing so much as a little mystery. The following is from a West Australian
gossip columnist on 20 October 1887:
I hear on
good authority that Madame Hortense
Hazard, the American sculptress,painter and linguist, who lived in East Mel-bourne quite alone, and left
her collection ofcuriosities to James Snare, a grocers assist-ant, was a French
Countess in her own right.She married an American millionaire, andtook to
champagne. They were divorced,and Madame Hazard came to Australia andlived on
£500 a year sent her by her hus-band. Here is a case for the
Temperancesocieties. Female drunkards are seldom in-teresting. I
never met one who at all re- sembled the delightful "Janet" of
GeorgeEliot.
Don't you love that- "took to champagne"- my kind of woman!
Next is an auction notice as follows:
GRAND SALE
Of the
Late Madame
HORTENSE HAZARD'S
Wonderful
Collection
Of
MARBLE
STATUARY,
Of
Which
Critiques from the Roman, French, English,
and American
Papers will be Published.
COSTLY
BRONZES,
Including
Relics from
Memphis, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and
Catacombs at
Rome.
SPLENDID
PAINTINGS
By the
Old Masters.
GRAND OLD
LINE ENGRAVINGS (Very Rare) An invaluable Lot of
RARE OLD
BOOKS
The
Collection
of Years.
SUITES of
GLASS and CHINA
Formerly
Belonging to NAPOLEON.
Exquisite
Venetian Mirrors.
BED
FURNITURE,
Belonging to
MARIE ANTOINETTE.
SPLENDID
DIAMONDS, Roman Pearls, &c.
GEMMELL,
TUCKETT, and Co have received in-
structions
from Mr Snare, the executor of the late Madame Hortense Hazard to DISPOSE
of byAUCTION, on Tuesday and Wednesday, 25th and26th October, at 11 o'clock
each day, at the
ATHENAEUM,
COLLINS-STREET EAST,The whole of her splendid
ART
COLLECTION,
As above
Catalogues
at rooms», price one shilling.
Some of the
extracts from the Roman, French, andother papers will be given with the
catalogue, andthe remainder, which are too voluminous to publish,
can be seen
at the auctioneers' rooms.
The
collection will be on view on and after Monday, 17th inst, at
Madame H's late residence, 25 Hotham street, East Melbourne, from 10 till
4. _
Notice what is in her collection of collectibles; Suites of china glass and china belonging to Napoleon, paintings by grand old masters, bed furniture belonging to Marie Antointette. How does a divorced Amercan sculptress get such belongings and then bring them to Australia in the 1880's??
I have mentioned the aristocracy of
birth, and will now mention the aristocracy
of brains. Charles Dickens has two sons
residing in Melbourne. Ellen Terry
has a brother in Sydney. Miss Braddon's
brother resides in Launceston. Last
night's Herald records the death of a
remarkable woman, who had lived in
Melbourne about five years. A sketch of
her life is worth recording, for is it not
true that the aristocracy of brains is
much rarer than that of birth? In 1882
there arrived in Melbourne a most
remarkable woman, who, though a celebrity in
Europe and America, lived quietly in
Melbourne without attracting the smallest
public attention. Her name was Hortense
Heuze Hazard, and it is safe to say
that a more brilliantly accomplished
woman never visited the colonies. A
sculptress, held by many European
authorities, when in Rome, to be the greatest
living ; an authoress, having written
much, both in prose and verse; and a linguist
whose knowledge of languages extended
to French, German, Italian, English and
Russian, all of which she spoke
fluently, and with the literature of which she had
an intimate acquaintance. The lady
left, among other works from her own chisel,
three beautiful pieces of statuary,
which have been exhibited in Rome, England
and America, and pronounced by the
critics to be beyond all praise. One of them
is emblematical of " Peace."
Another work, which has been pronounced one of
the finest pieces of modern sculpture,
is " I am Left Alone." A bereaved mother
is depicted with her two little
children ; the elder is gazing up at her grief-stricken
countenance, as if to ask the cause of
her woe, while the little brother, too young
to be anything but selfish, is
regardless of his mother's emotion, playing with a
bird he has caught. The posturing of
the figures is almost life-like. The marble
from which this was wrought was
obtained from a quarry which has been
exhausted, and has the peculiarity of
giving a silvery, metallic ring. Among her
rare and valuable possessions were some
magnificent paintings, some veritable
Correggios.
I can find nothing further in Australian Archives nor indeed the Herald archives and it does not appear that the catalogue prepared by Gemmett ,Tuckett and Co auction house has survived in any way. I could not access the website of the Victorian Records Office to see who had arrived by shipping in 1882.
So she is supposed to be an American Sculptress, writer and linguist- and it does appear she is mentioned in Pater Hastings Falks 1999 three volume Who Was Who in American Art- but I can find nothing on-line. Does anyone have access to this book?
I can find no further reference to Hortense Hazard except in a brief note in the holdings of the Rhode Island Historical Society to say that a Hortense de Huys ( names are often spelled in different ways and I am making the presumption that the Heuze in the inscription at the Geelong Gallery is probably the same as de Huys)was the first wife of one John N Hazard a member of a prominent New England family and that they had two children- but not the names of the children.
I can find no provenance for the statue and most of my google searches bring me back to Hortense Beauharnais - the daughter of Empress Josphine or her cousin Emilie Beauharnais.
I can also find no information on James Snare and how he came to inherit Madame Hortense Hazard's collection ( and she is noted to be Madame suggesting she is french). I have been searching for 2 days and am thoroughly intrigued. Why did she divorce Hazard- or why did he divorce her, which is more likely as the children appear to have stayed in the United States? Did she use a nom-de-plume for her writing? How did she have items belonging to Marie Antoinette and Bonaparte in her collection? It is known that Canova was commissioned by Josephine to make statutory for her. And why come to Australia? If there was a Beauharnais connection it could have been Josephines's commission of a book of her Australian plants in her garden at Malmaison executed by Redoute that aroused that interest.
Anyway it is like a good mystery novel but I really would like to find some answers!It has taken two days to find out this little and I am too intrigued to let it go!