Gentleman Painting a Miniature

A young dark-haired man painted his self-portrait in an unusual fashion in this miniature. He is sitting at a table and is in the process of painting a miniature. But he does not have the unfinished work lying in front of him; instead, he has fastened it to a wooden panel propped up on his desk and has pushed it towards the viewer for a closer look. The picture is painted too indistinctly to allow the subject to be identified. On the table, we can see the painter’s small ivory palette and a porcelain vessel which, presumably, contained gum arabic dissolved in water, which enabled the pigments to stick together. The painter is holding his brush, which has a fine point of hairs at both ends, in his right hand.
The artist portrayed here painted miniatures only as a hobby, as suggested by his clothes and the quality of the painting. He is wearing a fashionable, closefitting blue coat with shiny golden buttons and a white embroidered waistcoat with a high collar. The white shirt with its folds of cloth is adorned by a pin in the shape of a heart, from which a tiny key may be hanging. Napoleon admitted him to the Legion of Honour in recognition of his professional achievements. He is wearing the officer’s cross on a red ribbon attached to the lapel of his coat.
B. P.