Louis-Gustave Ricard worked primarily as a portraitist, producing almost 150 portraits. Like many French artists, he moved to England during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, where he painted a number of portraits. These probably included this portrait of a young Ellen Odette (1857–1933), who later became the Countess of Desart.
Ellen was the eldest daughter of Henri Louis Bischoffsheim, a wealthy Jewish banker of German descent. If this portrait was painted while Ricard was in England, Ellen would have been 13 or 14 years old when she sat for it. Her youthfulness would support this date for the portrait. As in his Portrait of a Man, Ricard has used soft tones and muted lighting. The dark neutral background and Ellen’s own hair highlight her pale face. Its shape and the curve of her shoulders are echoed are by the oval mahogany panel on which the portrait is painted. Although the portrait shows the influence of Dutch painting on Ricard, Ellen’s open and unaffected expression – now rather obscured by varnish – also reveals his awareness of eighteenth-century British portraiture, particularly portraits of children by Reynolds and Romney.
In 1881 Ellen married William Cuffe, 4th Earl of Desart, who had divorced his first wife in 1878. Following William’s death in 1898, Ellen, as Countess of Desart, became a significant figure in the Gaelic revival and pursued her own political career in the Irish Free State, which existed from 1922 to 1937. This included her being the first Jew to serve as a senator in Ireland.
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