Richard Westall R.A. — the French Connection

A developing interest in the influence Richard Westall had in France, with Delacroix and Gericault, is augmented by a mention in Balzac's "Eugénie Grandet" (1833) :

la vue de son cousin fit sourdre et son cour les émotions de fine volupté que causent à un jeune homme les fantastiques figures de femme dessinées par Westall dans les keepsakes anglais, et gravées par les Finden d'un burin si habile, qu'on a peut, en soufflant sur le vélin, de faire envoler ces apparitions célestes.

This is translated in the Penguin Classics edition by Marion Ayton Crawford as:

the sight of this exquisite youth gave Eugénie the sensations of aesthetic delight that a young man finds in looking at the fanciful portraits of women drawn by Westall for English "keepsakes", and engraved by the Findens with a burin so skilful that you hesitate to breathe on the vellum for fear the celestial vision should disappear.

It was reported in the Burlington magazine, vol. 82, July 1943 p.179, that "Another picture, St. James's Park by R. Westall, introduces to us the master — of whom it will be recalled Theophile Gautier* spoke with such affection — in an unaccustomed, fascinating romantic vein."

*Gautier (1811-72) was a Parisian art critic.