Lady in White Gown

The vivid portrait of a lady in a white gown is dominated by plain immediateness and thus corresponds to the classicist ideal of that time. The principle which says that the smaller the portrait, the less individual the representation does not seem apply to Augustin: even in miniature format, he achieved a vivid reproduction of the shades and nuances of his sitters' faces. His precision is so fine that it cannot be perceived with the naked eye but only with a magnifying glass ¹ . As it seems simply impossible to paint so delicately with brush and colour, Augustin' s miniatures radiate something which, in the words of a contemporary, "drive the observer to despair". ²

¹ In about 1797 Augustin changed his painting technique in the incarnate parts of his portraits: the structure of the brush strokes now became so delicate that it was not even perceptible with a magnifying glass.

² Salon review from 1812, quoted in Save 1880-1881, p. 95.