biography of Baroness HYDE DE NEUVILLE (c.1779-1849)

Birth place: Sancerre, France

Death place: France

Addresses: Wash., DC, 1816-22

Profession: Amateur artist

Work: NY Hist. Soc.; Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Ctr., Williamsburg, VA (Washington's Tomb, dated 1818); NYHS; NYPL

Comments: Prior to her marriage in 1794, the Baroness was known as Mlle. RouillÈ de Marigny. In 1807, she and her husband Baron Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville (1776-1857), an avid and outspoken supporter of the Bourbon monarchy, were forced into exile and fled to the United States. They remained until 1814, traveling from NYC up the Hudson River and then West to the Niagara Falls, South into Tennessee, eventually settling in New Brunswick (NJ). During these travels the Baroness made numerous pencil and watercolor sketches of scenes and people along the way. After Napoleon was overthrown in 1814, the couple went back to France. Two years later, the Baron was made minister to the U.S. and the two returned, living in Washington from 1816 to 1822, during which time the Baroness again made many sketches of American life.

Sources: G&W; Monaghan, "The American Drawings of Baroness Hyde de Neuville;" Andrews, "The Baroness Was Never Bored;" Fenton, "The Hyde de Neuville Portraits of New York Savages in 1807-1808." More recently, see 300 Years of American Art, vol.1: 86; McMahan, Artists of Washington, D.C. Her birth date is unclear, some sources have placed it at 1776 or 1779, but her husband wrote in his memoirs that she was a centenarian at her death in 1849.