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Portrait of Queen Natalie Obrenovic

VR-All-Art

Vlaho Bukovac

Oil on canvas

131 x 214 cm

Not For Sale

While enjoying great popularity in Paris with his painting “La Grande Iza”, Bukovac received an invite from the Royal Court to paint the portrait of Queen Natalie and the crown Prince Alexander. Instead of the conventional portrait in royal ornate style, Queen Natalie chose to wear a white ball gown which gave Bukovac the freedom to paint virtuously and effectively, as well as to contrast a dark background with lighter details that highlighted the beauty and softness of silk, tulle, fur, taffeta, and the Queen’s complexion. Bukovac wished to exhibit Queen Natalie’s portrait as quickly as at the upcoming Paris Salon, but he did not receive permission from the Royal Court. Having in mind that he signed himself and marked the date on most of his commissioned portraits, it is slightly unusual that a piece as significant as this one does not bear the same marking. It is possible that, due to the damage sustained during World War I and the restoration done in 1925, several centimeters of the canvas were cut off on the right side of the painting and that, therefore, Bukovac’s signature was mistakenly removed as well. For this portrait, Bukovac received the Medal of Honor of the Fifth Order of the Cross of Takovo, which is currently kept in the artist’s estate.

Exhibitions with this piece

National Museum in Belgrade

Vlaho Bukovac

Selected Artworks

Born in July 1855, the Croatian artist began his career in France where he painted in what is described as a “sugary” realistic style and gained great success at the Paris Salon. In 1887, Bukovac created what is possibly his best-known work, a nude Une Fleur (A Flower). The painting was well-received not only in France at the time, but it garnered numerous reviews and publications during his lifetime. Over the years he spent actively creating art, Bukovac’s style saw numerous changes – he was no stranger to stepping out of the set boundaries and rules dictated by the Salon. Both his life and work were nothing short of eclectic. The National Museum of Serbia keeps twenty-three of Vlaho Bukovac’s paintings. Between the portrait of Queen Natalie of Serbia (Natalija Obrenovic) made in 1882 and the portrait of King Alexander I (Aleksandar I Karadjordjevic) painted just before Bukovac’s death, there is a humble but stylistically and thematically diverse gallery of the artist’s oeuvre. Based on the established chronology and defined formative categories in painting, Bukovac’s artworks from the collection of the National Museum in Belgrade encompass almost all of the phases in his creative life – academism, realism, impressionism and symbolism, and as such they are represented for the first time in one place.

View exhibition

Other works by Vlaho Bukovac