Jacques Charlier comes next to his master in point of date, having been born in 1720. Very little biographical information is to be gleaned about this artist; nevertheless he was extremely well known in his time, and his genius, such as it was, appears to have been admirably adapted to the taste of the day. Thus, the Comte de Caylus, the amateur who has left us that valuable memoir of Watteau which the Goncourts rescued from oblivion, is said to have possessed a hundred examples by Charlier; and in 1772 the Prince de Conti commissioned him to paint a dozen miniatures at 1,200 livres apiece. Louis XV. also extended his patronage to Charlier, who painted upon boxes most of the members of that monarch's family.
It would seem that after the death of Louis XV. Charlier's reputation waned, and the value of his works diminished. He had a sale of his productions which by no means answered his expectations, and shortly afterwards he died. Hertford House can boast of a large number of works attributed to Charlier; but, for the most part, they consist of the familiar Toilet of Venus, nymphs bathing, and such-like subjects which we are wont to associate with Boucher. But here and there will be found a portrait—one of Madame Elizabeth of France, for instance.
The versatile Jean Honoré Fragonard, says M. Bouchot, painted miniatures only for his amusement. This critic also attributes them to Madame Fragonard. Be their authorship what it may, examples which can be safely attributed to him are extremely rare and greatly sought after. A representative one is to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and another is in the Wallace Collection.[6] Each may be described as a portrait study of a young girl; in each the handling is broad in the extreme, and resembles a freely painted water-colour drawing in effect.
I now come to a miniature painter proper, of the highest excellence, viz., Pierre Adolphe Hall. He has been termed—and I, for one, should agree with this verdict—the finest miniature painter of the eighteenth century. The facility of his execution is simply marvellous; the sweetness and tenderness of expression that he gives to his faces, and the invariable refinement of his works, make them delightful. His manner is entirely peculiar to himself, body colour being largely used. The work is broad in style and effect, and yet the features are often minute.
The career of this prolific artist was somewhat chequered; and although he earned large sums of money by his brush—as much as twenty to thirty thousand livres a year, it is said—he died in poverty, and left his family in want. He was born at Stockholm, in 1736. When twenty-four years of age he came to Paris to study; here he remained many years, and married a Mlle. Godin, of Versailles, whose father was killed in the Revolution. Gustavus III. wished Hall to return to Sweden; but he had become so thoroughly French that he refused.
The Revolution sounded the knell of the artist's fortunes. Quitting Paris, he started for the north, hoping to find employment and commissions on the way; but at Liège he was seized with apoplexy, and died there, in 1793.
In the Exhibition of Miniatures at the French National Library to which I have several times referred, there were over fifty examples attributed to Hall, many of superb quality and undoubted authenticity. I do not mention the price obtained at auction as an infallible test of the quality of a miniature, or of any other work of art—for fashion reigns supreme in the sale-room as elsewhere; nevertheless, it is perhaps worth recording that two miniatures by Hall, shown in this collection, fetched the sum of 28,000 and 60,000 francs respectively, one being a portrait of the Countess Helflinger, née O'Dune—an exquisitely soft and tender example, now belonging to M. Cognac; while the other came from the Mülbacher Sale, and represented, not Louisa, Queen of Prussia, as was wrongly stated in Swedish on the back of the frame, but probably, since the portrait is entirely French in style, that of Mlle. Dugazon in the character of Nina, as may be seen by a comparison with an engraving of the subject by Janinet after Houin, and the portrait by Mme. Vigée le Brun of the famous actress which now belongs to the Comtesse de Pourtales.
J. B. AUGUSTIN.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
(Mme. de Sainte Martin Valogne.)