A young gentleman, in brown coat with black collar, white waistcoat and frilled cravat and knotted white scarf, powdered hair en queue

When this miniature was last seen on the auction market in 1919, it was still together with its companion piece, a stunning miniature of a young lady against a landscape with the pyramid of Caius Cestius in the background, signed and dated by Augustin 1792 (lot 52 of the Madame Darcy sale). Both miniatures were then identically framed as the present piece. The miniature of the lady, remounted in a diamond-studded frame, has been from 1947 in the Louvre, illustrated in P. Jean-Richard, Miniatures sur ivoire. Musée du Louvre. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 1994, no. 17. It is interesting to note that the sitter was wearing an order pinned to his left lapel but which has been overpainted. Whilst the consequences of the French Revolutionary decree of 19 June 1790 which abolished hereditary noblility, noble titles, coats-of-arms and military orders, were firstly not taken too seriously, the political climate had changed by 1792 and in the light of the Massacres of September 1792, wearing an order became dangerous.