A young noblewoman with curled blonde hair, in purple dress with pearl-bordered clasp and ochre cloak, wearing a pearl necklace and matching pearl drop earrings

Details

PIERRE SIGNAC (FRENCH, C. 1624-1684)
A young noblewoman with curled blonde hair, in purple dress with pearl-bordered clasp and ochre cloak, wearing a pearl necklace and matching pearl drop earrings
on vellum
oval, 1 13/16 in. (46 mm.) high, gold frame with turquoise-blue enamelled reverse, the borders enamelled in black and white within raised scallops

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Lot Essay

Graham Reynolds (The Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1999, pp. 214-217) illustrates five similar rectangular miniatures of princely sitters and explains that in 1665, Queen Hedvig Eleonora of Sweden asked German courts to allow Signac to paint portraits for her. Similar miniatures by Signac, of oval and rectangular shape, constitute the family portraits of King Charles XI of Sweden, illustrated in G. Cavalli-Björkman, Svenskt Miniatyrmaleri, Stockholm, 1981, pp. 72-73.

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