Jenny des Roys (1796–1867) - Neoclassical landscape

Joséphine Henriette, known as Jenny des ROYS d’ESCHANDELYS,
born HOCHE
(Thionville, 1796 – Paris, 1867)

Neoclassical landscape

Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
20 x 30.5 cm
1821

The only daughter of Republican General Louis Lazare Hoche and Anne Adélaïde Dechaux, Joséphine Henriette, known as Jenny, was born during her father’s campaigns in Thionville on 15 January 1796. She married Count Étienne Annet des Roys d’Eschandelys (1788-1868) on 20 June 1814 in Paris in the parish of Saint-Roch. It was he, as Seneschal of the upper Limousin region, who presided over the assembly of the Estates General in Limoges in March 1789. He was made a Baron of the Empire. From this union were born seven children, of whom only two boys reached adulthood, in particular Ernest Gabriel des Roys who was a deputy of Seine Inférieure.

Concerning Jenny's artistic abilities, we have little information. Like any girl from a good family, Jenny probably received artistic training in painting and drawing. A few rare paintings by her hand are annotated on the back after Bidault. It is therefore highly likely that she was the latter's student. Our painting, for its part, is a very successful reworking of a painting by Bertin. Here again, it is more than likely that she was able to follow the teachings of the master of neoclassical landscape.

Jenny des Roys died on November 7, 1867 in Paris at the age of 71. She was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery and then exhumed in 1904 to be transported to Gaillefontaine (Seine-Maritime) where the castle of her son, the Marquis Ernest Gabriel des Roys d’Eschandelys, is located.