AUGUSTIN Jean-Baptiste-Jacques (1759-1832), MINIATURE PORTRAIT OF AN ORPHAN LITTLE GIRL, CIRCA 1796

TECHNIQUE: Watercolor and gouache on ivory, protected under a convex glass

ARSTIST: AUGUSTIN Jean-Baptiste-Jacques (1759-1832)

SIGNED:

FRAME : Gilded and chased frame

PORTRAIT SIZE: 7cm

FRAME SIZE: 9cm

DESCRIPTION :

Miniature by Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin, portrait of a girl leaned in front of a landscape.

Bernd Pappe, in his( catalog raisonné about the artist : " Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin, a new excellence in the art of the miniature portrait " (Scripta on 2015), reproduced in color this rare child's  portrait page 166 and dates it of year 1796 (see note page 266) .

The girl, baby-faced and in the plump hands, still wear the short hair,  proof of her young age. Nevertheless , the pause and the shawl already evoke  the Lady she will become.

Everywhere around her we find, discreet but very present, symbols evoking a loss :

- to the left a weeping willow symbolizes the chagrin.

- to the right a broken rosebud evokes  a premature disappearance of a child (a newborn child, a brother, a sister....?)

.- In background, we distinguish a mausoleum on an island lined with poplars, very inspired by that, celebrate at that time, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Ermenonville.

A deceased, or maybe two, are very present in this portrait, which, in my opinion, is not a posthumous portrait. Indeed, the mausoleum in background  is far too grand to be the one of a very young child in the XVIIIth century, and the presence of the girl posing in the foreground of its own grave, would be improper. On the other hand, the  represented grave, would be more suited for the loss of a young mother, doubtless dead during childbirth ( the broken rosebud for a lost newborn), what would explain the melancholic look of the small orphan to the foreground.


CONDITION: Very good original condition

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bernd Pappe " J. B. J. Augustin une nouvelle excellence dans l'art du portrait en miniature", reprod. color page 166, notice page 266