The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Mrs von Frisching-von Wattenwyl

Joseph Desvernois (attributed)

Although numerous works by the artist of this miniature have survived, he remained unknown for a long time.1 It is highly likely that they were painted by Joseph Desvernois, an artist born in Lons-le-Saunier who settled in French-speaking Switzerland for a good decade from around 1787. From there, the artist presumably travelled to Bern, where he is thought to have painted the portrait of Frau von Frisching, née von Wattenwyl.2 The artist travelled widely: traces of him can be found in Italy, Germany and France, and he may also have worked in Sweden for a time.3

There are certain characteristics in the miniatures which strongly suggest that they were created by the same artist: the pre-drawing sketch with a grey pencil and the sitter’s peculiar eye shape, which brought him the epithet of “master of miniature portraits with a melancholy look”. According to latest research the painter of this group of works also created the “profile portraits in Bourgeois' style”4 which are found in Switzerland en masse and which show the pre-drawing with a grey pencil and a mop of hair sketched in watercolours.
B. P.

1 This group of works was examined by Bernd Pappe, “Les miniaturistes de l’aristocratie bernoise”, in: Genoud 1999, pp. 88-9 and p. 102. We would like to express our sincere thanks to Henry-Noel Canival, Paris, for his research into the artist and his family.
2 Von Frisching and von Wattenwyl are noble families from Bern. In the register of the Bernische Burgerbibliothek (Berne Citizens’ Library) the lady in this miniature is identified as Anna Margaritha von Frisching-von Wattenwyl (1708-1769). However, her life data do not correspond to the time in which the miniature was created. In 1802, in Bern, the miniaturist Paul Frédéric Caselli (1775-1817) was a pupil of Desvernois. Cf. Lettres de Frédéric Caselli 1800-1813, transcribed by Rémi Quesnel, Fondation Mémoires d’Ici, Saint-Imier.
3 For instance, Desvernois painted Princess Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort (Chantilly Palace, inv. no. OA 413) and King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (National Museum Stockholm, signed and dated 1803, inv. no. NMB 2196). A series of his works is illustrated in Biermann and Brinckmann 1917, no. 225-8.
4 Until now they had been ascribed to another artist. Cf. Bernd Pappe (see footnote 1), p. 88 and p. 102.