The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Lady in Black Dress at Balustrade

Jean Pierre Thiboust (attributed)

A young lady in a black dress1 is standing behind a balustrade; with her right hand she is drawing back a voluminous green curtain, thus offering a view onto a broad landscape with trees2. This representation, rarely found in miniatures, echoes an oil painting by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun from 1789 of the banker’s wife Mme Perregaux3, which is in the Wallace Collection today. Whereas the background in the portrait of Perregaux is monochrome and probably indicates an interior, the background in this miniature is designed to be an outdoor scene. However it is difficult to imagine oneself as the sitter standing outdoors and looking into a room. It seems more likely that the curtain belongs to a stage, while the trees in the background represent scenery, and the balustrade serves to close the stage off from the audience. In this case it seems reasonable to suppose that the lady is a singer or an actress shown in her artistic environment.

B. P.

1 Though there are some aspects in this work which are not typical of Thiboust, we maintain the former attribution. Thiboust did not normally add height to the hair in his portraits by using a scraper, but with opaque white, and painted the eyes more lancet-shaped and the flesh parts with broader brushstrokes.
2 A miniature identical with respect to posture and background (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, no. 39565), dated 1794, shows another lady and was created by a miniature painter from Laurent’s circle.
3 Wallace Collection, London. Vigée-Lebrun herself was probably inspired by 17th century Dutch paintings in which a curtain was a popular element.