Lady in a Black Dress with a Fur Stole

The young woman, who sat for the miniaturist Flavien-Emmanuel Chabanne in Lyons in 1831, wanted an austere, almost gloomy, portrait. She is wearing a simple black dress with a slender brown fur stole draped around her neck. She has fixed her dark brown hair in curls above her ears and pinned a hairpiece like a bow to the back of her head. The starkness of the picture is intensified by the background, in which dark green and brown tones dominate. Admittedly, the woman’s unusual posture – she is sitting on a chair and looking over her right shoulder at the observer – give the likeness a youthful and whimsical note. The artist chose a lighting scheme used rarely in miniature painting: the light does not fall on the sitter from the left – as is usually the case with right-handed artists for practical reasons – but from the right.

In the opinion of an art critic writing in 1830, Chabanne was one of the few miniaturists who excelled in this art. “His miniatures are justifiably praised”, he wrote. “They stand out because they unite all the qualities demanded of a man and artist with regard to good taste in a portrait: pure and exact drawing, intelligent modelling, an imaginative line, individual colours, and a complete faithfulness to the sitter.” ¹

B. P.