Self-Portrait

In this self-portrait, displayed in the salon of the Academy of Saint-Luc in Paris in 1774, the artist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard presented herself while painting her miniatures. She holds a palette in her left hand, an unusually large one for this kind of painting,¹ and in her right hand a finely shaped brush. The green covered painting desk is slightly inclined and stands on a small black lacquered table with bronze fittings. The miniature and a piece of paper serving to wipe the brush lie on the work surface. A vase with multi-coloured flowers is placed alongside, and a bust of an elderly lady,probably the artist’s mother, stands on a pedestal next to the table.
Here, as in her self-portrait of 1785 (Metropolitan Museum, New York) the artist depicts herself as a genteel lady, whose clothes and furnishings do not differ in any way from those of an aristocrat. This laboured conformity to the leading social class is even more striking in the later self-portrait, for there the artist presents herself painting in oils using an easel, thus indeed putting her rich clothing and the sumptuous furniture at risk. With miniature painting, on the other hand, there was little danger of soiling due to the restricted painting area on the table and the small quantities of water-soluble paint.²
On the occasion of the exhibition, Labille-Guiard’s self-portrait in miniature had drawn a favourable commentary from an anonymous art critic. After criticising the indistinctly painted backgrounds in other portraits by the artist, he noted: “She refrained from this mistake in her own (portrait), furthermore her head is far more distinct, being painted with much subtlety and resemblance.This miniature displays a beautiful painting style, it is agreeable and has much appeal.”³
B. P.