Millet2022

4. Portrait of Felix-Auguste Postel, Ship’s Outfitter from Le Havre Portrait de Felix-Auguste Postel, Armateur au Havre

1845 Pastel on paper

15½ x 12¾ in. (39.5 x 31.5 cm) Signed lower left in red: F. MIllet

PROVENANCE The Postel Family; By descent in the family.

EXHIBITION Douvres, Baronnie de Douves. Réalistes et Impressionnistes normands . Caen, 1961. hors cat.. LITERATURE Lucien Lepoittevin. Jean-François Millet Portraitiste . Paris 1971, no. 88, illustrated; Les Normands et la mer : [actes du] XXVe congrès des Sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Normandie, Communauté urbaine de Cherbourg, 4–7 octobre 1990 / organisé par la Société nationale académique de Cherbourg et le Service historique de la Marine. illustrated p. 168, pl. II. Millet was sent to Cherbourg by his parents in 1833 and began studying paint- ing there. The sitter, Felix-Auguste Postel (1817–1895) had run a well- known several generations old family shipping business, originally based in Cher- bourg. By the late 1860s, Postel’s business had become one of the largest ship- ping companies in France and by necessity relocated to Le Havre, which had become one of the major ports of France.