Lady with White Hat

Within miniature portrayal Elisabeth Terroux ranks among the few painters who specialised in the difficult technique of enamel painting. The elaborate manufacture of these miniatures, in the course of which the colours are prone to change during the firing process, ensured a robust and durable colour effect on the one hand, yet on the other hand it could also produce a certain artificiality.

Terroux succeeded in achieving a splendidly warmcolouring for the lady’s face. The lady is looking at the spectator from aposition turned slightly to the left. The lace-trimmed black dress stands out in high contrast to the bouffant fichu, as well as from the elaborately pleated white veil, which is tied over her head. White highlights put delicate luminous spots on the fall of the folds, lending a three-dimensional effect to the material. Yet, at the same time, one also detects a tendency towards a standardised simplification in the portrayal of these details. Hair and lace appear less natural and instead emerge as decorative adornments.

The Tansey Collection acquired the miniature as a portrait of Elisabeth Brownlow. However, the second wife of John Brownlow, Viscount of the northern Irish county of Tyrconnell, was born before 1715 and died in 1780 and is therefore not a possibility. As a consequence, identification of the sitter remains impossible.