Frieze Masters 2026

Probably painted around 1928, this striking portrait depicts Auguste Leroux’s daughter Madeleine at a pivotal moment in her own career as an artist. Seated confidently in a landscape, she meets her father’s gaze directly, while her painter’s palette rests conspicuously on the rocks beside her. Both setting and attribute seem deliberate - landscape painting would become central to Madeleine’s own work, while the palette asserts her identity as a professional artist rather than simply the daughter of one.

Madeleine had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under her father and Ferdinand Humbert and was already achieving considerable success. She won a Gold Medal at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1926 and the Prix de Rome in 1927, before receiving a scholarship to the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid in 1929. The portrait therefore appears to capture her at the threshold of an important new chapter: an established young painter about to embark on the Spanish period that would profoundly shape her career. Leroux presents his daughter not simply as a sitter, but as a fellow artist.

Her dress and extraordinary hat add to the portrait’s distinctly modern character. The small black hat is dramatically ornamented with great feather pompons on either side, a fashion for which there is a remarkably close contemporary description. Reporting on Paris fashions, The Mercury of Wednesday 22 March 1922 noted that “A Napoleon hat, with feathers or pompons at either side, is also popular at present.” Against Leroux’s pale, freely painted landscape, the dark hat and rich blue, green costume give Madeleine an arresting, almost theatrical presence.