French school, ca.1810.

French school, ca.1810.
"Male portrait".
Miniature in oil.
Signed.
Measurements: 7 x 6 cm; 11.5 x 10 cm (frame).

Miniature in oil representing a male character. It could be a nineteenth-century musician, by what we observe in the informal clothing, the open coat and the knotted handkerchief in a neck with satin lapels. He wears long sideburns, a characteristic aspect of the intellectuals and musicians of the time.

Since the Renaissance, miniature portraits, framed in a circle or oval, were pieces for private contemplation. Considered as jewelry, in the seventeenth century they became pieces of personal adornment or a gift object, when mounted as jewelry. They were made in a great variety of techniques, such as oil on copper, tin or ivory, gouaches on parchment or cardboard and, since the 18th century, watercolor on ivory. This delicate art will be lost since the second half of the 19th century, in parallel to the development of photography.