# Portrait traditionally identified as the Chevalier d’Éon makes €429,000 at Dorotheum Canonical article: https://arthistory.news/news/portrait-traditionally-identified-as-the-chevalier-d-eon-makes-429-000-at-doroth-b8317efb-79a6-4ca0-9089-70561350718b By ArtHistory.News Published: 2026-10-22T06:32:11.814Z An eighteenth-century portrait traditionally identified as the Chevalier d’Éon sold for €429,000, including buyer’s premium and VAT, at Dorotheum’s Old Masters auction in Vienna on 21 October. Offered with an estimate of €12,000-18,000, it provided one of the sale’s most intriguing results. Catalogued as French School, eighteenth century, the painting depicts a sitter in women’s dress and a pearl-decorated turban, enclosed within a painted oval. The oil on canvas measures 63.5 × 52.5 cm. Its attribution history adds to the interest. According to Dorotheum’s provenance, the picture appeared at Hampel in Munich on 7 April 2016, when it was offered as attributed to Angelica Kauffmann. Dorotheum adopted the broader French School designation, while retaining the traditional identification of the sitter as Charles d’Éon de Beaumont, known as the Chevalier d’Éon. Both the artist and the sitter therefore remain questions requiring further investigation. D’Éon \(1728-1810\) was a French soldier, diplomat, spy and celebrated fencer whose career crossed the political and social worlds of France and Britain. Having initially pursued a public career as a man, d’Éon lived as a woman from 1777 and subsequently became famous in Britain for fencing demonstrations. The National Portrait Gallery holds a separate, securely identified portrait painted by Thomas Stewart in 1792 after Jean-Laurent Mosnier. The museum regards that picture as an important document in the history of transgender people in Britain. The Vienna result raises an obvious question: what did bidders see in this particular painting? Its former association with Kauffmann and the possible identity of its sitter offer avenues for research, but the price alone resolves neither. Any convincing reassessment will need evidence from the picture itself, its provenance and comparison with established works. For now, the distinction matters: this was an exceptional result for a painting offered under a broad school attribution, with a traditional identification attached to its subject. It is a compelling lead for further scholarship, rather than an attribution settled in the saleroom. ## Illustrations Portrait of a man, bust-length, traditionally identified as Charles d’Eon de Beaumont, called Le Chevalier d’Eon \(1728–1810\), in women’s dress and a turban decorated with pearls, in a painted oval, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 52.5 cm Dorotheum [Image source](). ## Sources Please cite the canonical article URL above. Image credits and reproduction rights remain with their respective holders.