Jean Jacob Chevrier

This gentleman’s portrait belongs to the type of portrait miniature that Arlaud-Jurine created more and more often in the 1780s. They show the model in “standard pose” within an oval of only a few centimetres.¹ The depiction is confined to the bare essentials, exhibiting the sitter in front of a monochrome ground with his torso slightly turned to the side facing the observer. This simple concept makes the gentleman’s features stand out all the more impressively. In the present miniature the sitter captivates not with his outward assets, but through the vigorous painting style and the realistic painting of his individual traits.The artist’s portrayal of the small eyes and the long nose in the chubby face foregoes all flattering embellishments.

Jean Jacob Chevrier (1757–1823) was the son of Jacob Chevrier, a member of the Genevan Council of Two Hundred. In his home town of Geneva he became a merchant and married Jeanne Suzanne Marie Claire Fazy (1767–1808) in 1783. Of their seven children only four survived infancy. Possibly Chevrier ordered his portrait from Arlaud at the time of his marriage. An extension of the family was often an occasion to have miniatures commissioned in order to add them to the “family album.”

B. P.