The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Gentleman with Large Earrings

Jean-Théodore Graff

This portrait of a gentleman with two golden earrings1 in a brown coat and a blue waistcoat with golden embroidery was created in the mid-1790s. It bears the signature Graff and belongs to a group of high-quality miniatures which were painted in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, no details are known about the artist. The opinion that the miniatures were painted by the famous portrait painter from Winterthur Anton Graff, held by the connoisseurs Jeannerat and Schidlof, for instance, has to be rejected due to stylistic characteristics.2 It is true that Graff created portraits in miniature format, but they are drawn with a silver pencil on whitened parchment3 and show far more psychological detail. In his painting technique the miniature painter Graff clearly shows a French influence: he uses broad gouache for clothes, background and hair and watercolour for the delicate flesh parts.4
B. P.

1 Not only long trousers but also earrings were adopted from sailors’ clothes by men during the time of the French Revolution to show their sympathy with the Revolutionary ideas. Later the man’s earring became a fashionable accessory. Cf. Göbel, Kohlmann, Müller and Vanja 1989, pp. 79 ff.
2 The catalogue of works by Anton Graff by Berckenhagen, 1967, lists several miniatures painted by the miniature painter Graff as works of the Winterthur artist. Cf. Berckenhagen 1967, no. 638, no. 1536 and no. 1538. However, Berckenhagen himself expressed doubts that the attribution to Anton Graff is correct.
3 The exhibition “100 ans de miniatures suisses, 1780-1880” (100 years of Swiss miniatures, 1780 - 1880) in Lausanne, 1999-2000, showed some miniatures in silver pencil by Anton Graff. Among them is his superb self-portrait. Cf. Genoud 1999, p. 106.
4 Henry-Noel Canival, Paris, succeeded in identifying the miniaturist Jean-Théodore Graff. We would like to thank him for his research. See: Henry-Noel Canival, "Peintre en miniature: Graff, à présent identifié, n’est pas le peintre Anton Graff", in Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard, La Lettre de la Miniature, no. 84, 2025, pp. 8-14, and: Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard, "Influences sur le style de Jean-Théodore Graff, et possibles pérégrinations de l’artiste", in idem, pp. 15-7.