Jean-Marie Ribou

Gentleman with Headscarf with White-Red-Blue Pattern

Though formerly considered a portrait of Thérèse Elisabeth Le Ray de Chaumont, we consider the sitter of this miniature to be a young gentleman ¹ : the sitter' s broad cheek bones with sideburns, his divided chin and his intimated Adam' s apple point to a male physiognomy.The sitter wears an open-necked shirt with a jabot; his hair is unpowdered and partly covered by a headscarf with blue-white-red pattern. All these elements suggest that he is a young revolutionary who wanted to show his political attitude in his outward appearance. More than forty small-format portraits in oil by Ribou are known but only a few miniatures. His full name and some life data have recently become known ² .

B.P.

¹ Cf. Jeannerat 1957, p. 344. Jeannerat did not recognize that the hardly legible signature belonged to Ribou and therefore ascribed the miniature to the French school. Cf. a similar portrait of a gentleman with a striped Foulard by Ribou (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille).

² They show ancestors of the Bourbon dynasty and were painted around 1775 (Musée Condé, Chantilly). For information on Ribou cf. Garnier-Pelle 1995, pp. 108-127.