The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Gentleman in Brown Coat and Waistcoat with Ochre Stripes

Charles Guillaume Alexandre Bourgeois

Bourgeois was an advocate of the “true portrait” and rejected rococo seductive artificiality. His portraits are unaffected, plain and immediate. Accordingly, the young gentleman in this portrait is represented in a natural posture and with a calm expression. The dull colours are brightened by the unobtrusive red shades in the flesh parts, drawing the observer’s attention to the sitter’s features. Bourgeois’s concept of portrait painting fully corresponds to his character as described in his epitaph: “[...] In everything he loved the truth for its own sake, and dedicated his whole life to it.”1 During the years of the French Revolution miniature painters had a difficult time, since their aristocratic clients had to leave the country. By adding his address to his signature, Bourgeois wanted to attract the attention of new clients and make it easier for them to call on him. In his later works, however, Bourgeois abandoned this unusual form of advertising.2
B.P.

1 Revue de l’art français ancien et moderne, December 1884, p. 190. Bourgeois’ grave is in the cemetery Père Lachaise in Paris. The artist’s physiognomy is captured in Boilly’s painting “Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio” from 1798 (illustrated in Pappe, Otten and Schmieglitz-Otten 2002, p. 16). Bourgeois is the ninth person from the left in the upper row.
2 In the 19th century Bourgeois began his research into visual phenomena and presented his results in lectures and publications. Moreover, he had a shop where he sold paints at Quai de l’Ecole in Paris.