Amélie van Assche

AMÉLIE VAN ASSCHE (France, 1804-1880).
"Female portrait".
Miniature in pastel.
Signed.
Inscribed on the back.
It presents fracture in the wood of the frame.
Measurements: 10,5 x 9 cm; 16 x 14,5 cm (frame).

Amélie van Assche was a Belgian painter, standing out especially as a portrait painter in the techniques of pastel and watercolor, as we observe in this miniature. She was born in 1804 and was the daughter of Henri Jean van Assche, police commissioner. Her first teachers were Miss F. Lagarenine and D'Antissier. She later moved to Paris, where she spent some time as a pupil of Millet. At the beginning of the 19th century, the "art of the miniature" was cultivated, as it was expressed at the time, by Hortense van Baerlen, Marie-Josèphe Dargent and Assche. He made his debut in Ghent in 1820 and in Brussels in 1821, with watercolors and pastels, and some of his miniatures appeared in various exhibitions in Brussels between 1830 and 1848, and in Ghent between 1835 and 1838. Her portraits, which are considered very similar, are also admirable for their coloring, drawing, and modeling; and her portrait of Leopold I, which she painted in 1839, won her appointment to the court. She was portrait painter and court painter to Queen Louise Marie of Belgium. It should also be noted that, contrary to popular belief, Amélie Van Assche is not the sister of Isabelle Catherine van Assche. The latter was a pupil of her uncle Henri Van Assche, a landscape painter.