Lady in White Dress

This unsigned lady’s portrait is to be assigned to the hitherto little noticed artist Louis Alexandre due to the painting technique and to stylistic criteria. Typical of his work is the very smooth and sharp modelling of the flesh parts, next to the distinctly broader brushwork for the dress and background. Another characteristic is his way of shaping the lady’s eyes, giving her a sphinx-like, intense look. The hues of the flesh parts and the liberally applied gouache colour are reminiscent of the oeuvre of François Dumont, with whom Alexandre studied.¹

One may wonder today whether the unnatural green hue of the face was intended as such, or whether it evolved during the aging of the work. A glance into the list of recommended colours for miniature painting shows that some tones were produced from herbal and animal sources. This includes, for example, madder lake and carmine in the range of red shades,indigo and logwood for the blue tones, as well as stil de grain

and Indian yellow for nuances of yellow.These were very fine-grained and were therefore suited for miniature painting,yet they had the disadvantage of bleaching when exposed to light. Some well-preserved works by Alexandre and Dumont allow conclusions regarding the colour design originally intended by the artist. Although the faces actually had greenish and bluish half shades, they were in general more reddish in their tones with deep shades in a lush red brown.

B. P.