Portrait of Suzanne Necker

Francois-Elie Vincent

Basic information

ID: Г-III-8
Author: Francois-Elie Vincent
Name: Portrait of Suzanne Necker
Date of creation: after 1781
Country: France
Technique: painting
Material: ivory gouache
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 8.5 x 6.7

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: portraiture
Provenance: Purchased from the antiques dealer M. Schulberg for the collection of Wladyslaw Lozinski on June 8, 1912. From 1914, it became part of the Gallery collection.

Information about author

Author: Francois-Elie Vincent
Artist's lifetime: 1708–1790
Country: Switzerland, France
Biography: Francois-Elie Vincent was a French portrait painter, miniaturist, and enameller of Swiss origin. He was a professor and director of the Académie de Saint-Luc in Paris. From 1780, he had the status of a court artist of royal princesses (sisters of the king).

Object description

This miniature forms a pair with the work “Portrait of Jacques Necker”. It replicates an oil portrait by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (after 1781), which is stored in Coppet Castle. The oil painting represents the knee-length image of Suzanne Necker; she is depicted in a white satin dress (maybe a wedding gown) in the fashion of that time. In contrast to the painting, the miniature depicts a waist-length image of a woman, and the dress’s color is shown in pink. Her hair is done in a lush hairstyle with curls and decorated with a white transparent bow. The miniature is in a gilt-bronze oval frame with convex glass on the obverse and reverse. On the back of it there is an ivory plate with the inscription: “Mon Coeur vous reste” (My heart remains with you); it is placed obliquely.

Inscriptions

On the right edge: Vincent

Portrayed person