The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Lady with Blue Scarf

Peter Eduard Stroely

A young lady in a translucent empire dress is represented in front of a blue-grey background.1 Her long curly hair is tied up with a blue scarf decorated with a patterned border and fringes, falling over her right shoulder. The lady’s head is turned to the right whilst her body is turned to the left, and this adds tension to the composition. The miniature painter carefully reproduced the sitter’s delicate curls which appear to bulge out from under the blue cloth, frame her face, and make an appealing contrast with her white dress.
In her left hand she is holding a sheet of paper on which she has just written “à toi”, thus dedicating her portrait miniature to a specific addressee. This unusual gesture testifies to the intimate character of many miniatures. Unfortunately the unnatural posture of the lady’s right arm is somewhat awkwardly reproduced, which detracts from the miniature’s intended effect.2 Nevertheless, the picture creates a beautiful and touching impression.
J. S. O.

1 The miniature previously belonged to the Jewish Jellinek family in Vienna. In June 1941 it was sold at auction, without the owners’ consent, at the 466th Dorotheum art auction in Vienna. At that time it was valued at 500 Reichsmark. Nothing is known about the buyer. Mrs Lieselotte Tansey-von Rautenkranz acquired the miniature when it was auctioned at Christie’s in Geneva on 14 November 1983, without knowledge of the previous ownership, and donated it to the Tansey Miniatures Foundation in 1996. Should the foundation be dissolved, it will attempt to return the miniature to the surviving descendants of the Jellinek family. Blue-grey backgrounds are typical of this miniature painter.
2 Possibly the sitter wished to be painted in this posture. Since it is also found in other miniatures by Stroely, we know that it was in his repertoire. A portrait of a lady in an identical posture and almost identical clothing but without a sheet of paper is in the Habsburg Collection, Vienna (Keil 1999, no. 195) which contains thirteen other miniatures by Stroely.