Infant in Wicker Basket

In this round miniature, there is a toddler portrayed in his basket cot. It is a park scene, surrounded by daisies and white roses –symbols of childhood innocence. The child rests his head musingly on its right hand and looks seriously and attentively at the miniature’s beholder. The child’s expression should be viewed in connection with the urn displayed on the right. It can be assumed that the child has lost a parent or even that he himself died at a young age and that the miniature was painted posthumously. The urn’s beautifully curved and polished speckled stone has an amazing plasticity and evokes by its cold, smooth and shiny material a strong contrasting effect to the child’s softness. Due to stylistic characteristics the miniature was hither to attributed to Augustin Dubourg, the elder brother of Augustin. The virtuosity of the depiction, the subtle colour nuances and the rendition of even the smallest details, however, suggest attribution to Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin. As both brothers presumably worked together for a time in the 1780s, and the younger had been introduced to miniature painting by his elder brother, there is an astounding stylistic conformance especially in the early work. Apart from the richness in detail as a distinctive feature of Augustin’s portraits of the late ancient régime, there is a visual emphasis on the head, which appears too large in comparison to the body.