Gentleman in Green Coat with Black Velvet Collar

At the beginning of the 1790s an elderly gentleman had his portrait painted by an artist whose painting style shows striking peculiarities: in the background and the hair the colour was stippled with the paintbrush, producing impressionistic effects. The modelling of the face in purple half-shades and reddish brown depths with a rather broad and intermittent dotting is also unconventional. The line of the eyelashes is not regularly curved, but consists of juxtaposed straight-line segments. The brushwork, also clearly visible to the naked eye, appears muddled when magnified, the contours blurred and indistinct. Looking at it without a magnifying glass, though, the painted parts merge to form a hazy ensemble.

Having been erroneously attributed to Antoine Vestier in the art trade, the work bears a great resemblance to the miniatures of Louis-Etienne Advinent. The flawed signature leaves only the initial letter A clearly legible. Advinent was a very unconventional artist, portraying his models relentlessly. His portraits of gentlemen are especially invested with a naturalism, which might not always have pleased his clients. One of his most audacious works is a picture of a young gentleman, dated 1804, in the Fondation Custodia, Paris: the sitter is depicted in a jolly mood and with his mouth slightly opened. He placed his forefinger on his lips, as if he would like to tell the painting’s viewer an amusing anecdote not intended for the ears of other people.¹

B. P.