Lady with Bonnet Decorated with Flowers

The miniaturist working under the alias Hipolite portrayed in this portrait, painted in 1783, an unknown young lady in a blue dress with a large white bow. She is wearing an oddly embellished bonnet made of tulle on her powdered wig: the adornment of white roses and blue blooms (probably cornflowers) is strictly divided in two sections above her forehead, whereby blue and white feathery shapes additionally adorn the bonnet on the side of the blue flowers. It would not be surprising if this hair ornament acted as a sort of communication from the lady to the miniature’s addressee.

The colouring of the flesh parts is almost monochromatic, quite similar to those of Hipolite’s profile portraits. Whether, however, this paleness was intentional or was caused by the bleaching of pigments sensitive to light, cannot be assessed conclusively.

The ladies’ fashions of the 1780s created various artistic problems for the portrait painters and especially for the miniaturists: how to arrange the swept up hairstyle with its embellishments into the tableau, without minimising the head too much or to moving it downwards? Hipolite opted for maintaining the proportions between bust and the picture’s surface, at the same time accepting that the bonnet had to be cut.

B. P.