Gentleman in Pale Blue Coat

With this young gentleman’s portrait the Tansey Collection owns an exceptional miniature. It is one of the extremely rare portraits that the Genevan miniaturist Louis-Ami Arlaud-Jurine did not paint in watercolour but in enamel.¹ This painting technique was known for its difficulties, but it did not seem to pose any exceptional problems to the artist. The depiction appears natural; it is fashioned in confident strokes and is painted very harmoniously in terms of the colours. It shows the model with a composed, sensitive and almost timid expression. One has to admire the freshness of the light colours, lacking the jarring tones that are so often found in enamel paintings.

In the late 1760s Arlaud was presumably a student with Jean-Etienne Liotard, who was skilled in watercolour and in enamel painting and was able to introduce his younger student to both methods. Arlaud obtained his inspiration from Liotard in the modelling of the face in distinctly separated areas of light and shade.

The artist painted this portrait in the early 1780s. After his artistic tuition in Geneva he complemented his expertise with Vien in Paris and subsequently extended his knowledge during a long journey to Rome in 1774/75. Back in Geneva he married Suzanne Jurine in 1778.

B. P.