Pierre Rouvier

Young Gentleman, "Baron de Fingerlin"

The gentleman at the piano plays a triad with his right hand, whereas his other hand rests on a big note book which he has placed upright on his thigh. It is the moment before the actual playing, and the portrayed person listens to the sound of the chord. His eyes, directed upwards, serve to express his intensive concentration on the sound. He seems to be lost in his actions, as opposed to representations of musicians in other miniatures. Rouvier succeeded in showing implicitly something spiritual: a person`s devotion to a sound. Taking this aspect into consideration, one tends to rank this picture with the classical artist portraits: on the occasion of the triumphant success of the opera "Iphigenie in Aulis" in Paris (1775), Joseph Duplessis painted a portrait of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, which was considered to be "a model for a portrait of a creative human being". It cannot be excluded that Pierre Rouvier had seen this famous portrait, similar to his own work in many aspects, which was integrated into the Imperial Gallery of Paintings in Vienna after 1824.

¹ Vgl. z. B. Kat.-Nr. 2000-4, 2000-121, 2000-142 in Miniaturen aus der Sammlung Tansey. Eine Baronin Ursula Fingerlin ist abgebildet bei M. Friesen (Hrsg.), Französische Miniaturen aus der Sammlung E.P.S. Darmstadt, 2001, S. 299.² Joseph Duplessis (1725-1802): Christoph Willibald von Gluck am Spinett, 1775, KHM Wien, Inv.-Nr. 1795. ³ Siehe Wolfgang Prohaska, KHM Wien, die Gemäldegalerie, Wien 1984, S. 88.