A Mystery

Where has that week gone?? I have become besotted by a mystery in the Geelong Gallery. Last Monday I attended a meeting for guides and one of the guides gave a small lecture about a marble statue entitled I am Alone attributed to Hortense Heuze Hazard 1871. The sculpture is rather lovely and the marble has a silvery sheen to it, and the work seems to be in the style of Canova, which was popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century.The inscription on the statue in Italian says:
Piancete al cante mio
voi che intendete amore
piancete al mio dolore
che sola aime son io.

However I can find little information on Hortense Heuze Hazard . And the historian in me loves nothing so much as a little mystery. The following is from a West Australian gossip columnist on 20 October 1887:

I hear on good authority that Madame Hortense Hazard, the American sculptress,painter and linguist, who lived in East Mel-bourne quite alone, and left her collection ofcuriosities to James Snare, a grocers assist-ant, was a French Countess in her own right.She married an American millionaire, andtook to champagne. They were divorced,and Madame Hazard came to Australia andlived on £500 a year sent her by her hus-band. Here is a case for the Temperancesocieties. Female drunkards are seldom in-teresting. I never met one who at all re-  sembled the delightful "Janet" of GeorgeEliot.  


Don't you love that- "took to champagne"- my kind of woman!

Next is an auction notice as follows:

GRAND SALE

Of the

Late Madame HORTENSE HAZARD'S

Wonderful Collection

Of

MARBLE STATUARY,

Of

Which Critiques from the Roman, French, English,

and American Papers will be Published.

COSTLY BRONZES,

Including

Relics from Memphis, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and

Catacombs at Rome.

SPLENDID PAINTINGS

By the

Old Masters.

GRAND OLD LINE ENGRAVINGS (Very Rare) An invaluable Lot of

RARE OLD BOOKS

The

Collection of Years.

SUITES of GLASS and CHINA

Formerly Belonging to NAPOLEON.

Exquisite Venetian Mirrors.

BED FURNITURE,

Belonging to MARIE ANTOINETTE.

SPLENDID DIAMONDS, Roman Pearls, &c.

GEMMELL, TUCKETT, and Co have received in-  

structions from Mr Snare, the executor of the  late Madame Hortense Hazard to DISPOSE of byAUCTION, on Tuesday and Wednesday, 25th and26th October, at 11 o'clock each day, at the

ATHENAEUM, COLLINS-STREET EAST,The whole of her splendid

ART COLLECTION,

As above  

Catalogues at rooms», price one shilling.

Some of the extracts from the Roman, French, andother papers will be given with the catalogue, andthe remainder, which are too voluminous to publish,

can be seen at the auctioneers' rooms.

The collection will be on view on and after Monday,    17th inst, at Madame H's late residence, 25 Hotham  street, East Melbourne, from 10 till 4. _

Notice what is in her collection of collectibles; Suites of china glass and china belonging to Napoleon, paintings by grand old masters, bed furniture belonging to Marie Antointette. How does a divorced Amercan sculptress get such belongings and then bring them to Australia in the 1880's??

Another mention appears in Around the World by Lydia Leavitt:

I have mentioned the aristocracy of birth, and will now mention the aristocracy

of brains. Charles Dickens has two sons residing in Melbourne. Ellen Terry

has a brother in Sydney. Miss Braddon's brother resides in Launceston. Last

night's Herald records the death of a remarkable woman, who had lived in

Melbourne about five years. A sketch of her life is worth recording, for is it not

true that the aristocracy of brains is much rarer than that of birth? In 1882

there arrived in Melbourne a most remarkable woman, who, though a celebrity in

Europe and America, lived quietly in Melbourne without attracting the smallest

public attention. Her name was Hortense Heuze Hazard, and it is safe to say

that a more brilliantly accomplished woman never visited the colonies. A

sculptress, held by many European authorities, when in Rome, to be the greatest

living ; an authoress, having written much, both in prose and verse; and a linguist

whose knowledge of languages extended to French, German, Italian, English and

Russian, all of which she spoke fluently, and with the literature of which she had

an intimate acquaintance. The lady left, among other works from her own chisel,

three beautiful pieces of statuary, which have been exhibited in Rome, England

and America, and pronounced by the critics to be beyond all praise. One of them

is emblematical of " Peace." Another work, which has been pronounced one of

the finest pieces of modern sculpture, is " I am Left Alone." A bereaved mother

is depicted with her two little children ; the elder is gazing up at her grief-stricken

countenance, as if to ask the cause of her woe, while the little brother, too young

to be anything but selfish, is regardless of his mother's emotion, playing with a

bird he has caught. The posturing of the figures is almost life-like. The marble

from which this was wrought was obtained from a quarry which has been

exhausted, and has the peculiarity of giving a silvery, metallic ring. Among her

rare and valuable possessions were some magnificent paintings, some veritable

Correggios.

I can find nothing further in Australian Archives nor indeed the Herald archives and it does not appear that the catalogue prepared by Gemmett ,Tuckett and Co auction house has survived in any way. I could not access the website of the Victorian Records Office to see who had arrived  by shipping in 1882.

So she is supposed to be an American Sculptress, writer and linguist- and it does appear she is mentioned in Pater Hastings Falks 1999 three volume Who Was Who in American Art- but I can find nothing on-line. Does anyone have access to this book?

I can find no further reference to Hortense Hazard except in a brief note in the holdings of the Rhode Island Historical Society to say that a Hortense de Huys  ( names are often spelled in different ways and I am making the presumption that the  Heuze in the inscription at the Geelong Gallery is probably the same as de Huys)was the first wife of one John N Hazard a member of a prominent New England family and that they had two children- but not the names of the children.

I can find no provenance for the statue and most of my google searches bring me back to Hortense  Beauharnais - the daughter of Empress Josphine or her cousin Emilie Beauharnais.

I can also find no information on James Snare and how he came to inherit Madame Hortense Hazard's collection ( and she is noted to be Madame suggesting she is french). I have been searching for 2 days and am thoroughly intrigued. Why did she divorce Hazard- or why did he divorce her, which is more likely as the children appear to have stayed in the United States? Did she use a nom-de-plume for her writing? How did she  have  items belonging to Marie Antoinette and Bonaparte in her collection? It is known that Canova was commissioned by Josephine to make statutory for her. And why come to Australia? If there was a Beauharnais connection it could have been Josephines's  commission of a book of her Australian plants in her garden at Malmaison executed by Redoute that aroused that interest.

Anyway it is like a good mystery novel but I really would like to find some answers!It has taken two days to find out this little  and  I am too intrigued to let it go!