“‘The old Duke will not live for ever,’ he sagely remarked; ‘he must die one of these days. Now, what I want you to do is to advise your friend Minton to make ten thousand copies of that bust, to pack them up in his warehouse and on the day of the Duke’s death to flood the country with them, and heigh presto! his fortune is made.’
“The Count hinted that he expected a trifle of £10,000 for his copyright, but Cole’s friend, Minton, did not quite see this, and proposed a royalty upon every copy sold. D’Orsay, who was painfully hard up for ready cash, indignantly spurned the offer.…”
D’Orsay is most generally known as an artist by reason of his large portrait of the Duke of Wellington now in the National Portrait Gallery, upon the completion of which the Duke is said to have shaken hands with the painter, saying: “At last I have been painted like a gentleman! I’ll never sit to anyone else.” And he certainly did write to Lady Blessington:—“You are quite right. Count d’Orsay’s work is of a higher description of art than is described by the word portrait! But I described it by that word, because the likeness is so remarkably good, and so well executed as a painting, and that this is the truest of all artistic ability, truest of all in this country.” Which last sentence is rather enigmatical.
Anent the statuette of O’Connell, referred to already, may be quoted a letter written by D’Orsay on 16th March 1847 to John Forster:—
“Prince Napoleon told me to-night at the French play, that he read in an evening paper, the Globe, I think, an article copied from an Irish paper, stating that I had made a statuette of O’Connell, and praising it, etc. I suppose that it is from Osborne Bernal,[23] who is in Ireland. But I would be glad it were known that I have associated him in the composition with the Catholic Emancipation, and also that I intend to make a present of the copyright to Ireland, for the benefit of the subscription for the poor.”
Of other works from his hand we may name the bust of Emile de Girardin, a portrait of Sir Robert Peel, and the picture of which some details have already been given, showing a group in the garden of Gore House.
We have already quoted an account of one visit paid by D’Orsay to Haydon, here is that of a second, from an entry in the painter’s Diary, dated 31st June 1838:—
“About seven, D’Orsay called, whom I had not seen for long. He was much improved, and looking the glass of fashion and the mould of form; really a complete Adonis, not made up at all. He made some capital remarks, all of which must be attended to. They were sound impressions, and grand. He bounded into his cab, and drove off like a young Apollo, with a fiery Pegasus. I looked after him. I like to see such specimens.”
In conclusion on this subject, from the New Monthly Magazine of August 1845, this:—
“Whatever Count d’Orsay undertakes, seems invariably to be well done. As the arbiter elegantiarum he has reigned supreme in matters of taste and fashion, confirming the attempts of others by his approbation, or gratifying them by his example. To dress, or drive, to shine in the gay world like Count d’Orsay was once the ambition of the youth of England, who then discovered in this model no higher attributes. But if time, who ‘steals our years away,’ steals also our pleasures, he replaces them with others, or substitutes a better thing; and thus it has befallen with Count d’Orsay.