Self-Portrait

This small portrait of a gentleman entered the Tansey Collection as a portrait of an unknown man, but from a graphic print it has been identified as a self-portrait by the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Couvelet.¹ The artist is shown in profile, turning his head towards the observer, on whom he gazes. In actual fact he is studying his own features in a mirror so that he can render his face as realistically as possible. This probably resulted first of all in a drawing on which the miniature was then based.²
Jean-Baptiste Couvelet was one of the most talented miniaturists of his time. In his youth, he studied in Paris for several years, after which he settled in Charleville, a French town close to the border to what is now Belgium. Here he lived with his wife, Marguerite Adélaïde Colson, and their five children.³ He earned his living as a portrait painter in oils and miniature but also taught at the local art school. Couvelet’s works appear down-to-earth and honest because the sitters are not made up and therefore the pictures sometimes appear a little unflattering. They were sometimes called “provincial”,⁴ but exert a unique fascination owing to their realism.
B. P.