François Hippolyte Desbuissons, genannt Hipolite
Lady in Profile
The bust of the young lady stands out against the dark blue foundation like a cameo. She is wearing a plain dress and a conspicuous bonnet of tulle with silk ribbons and a rosette. Her rich pearl jewellery implies that the lady is from a wealthy family. All the portraits of ladies painted by Hipolite in the year of the storming of the Bastille which are preserved 1 resemble this miniature from the Tansey Collection: the sitter is represented in profile to the left in front of a dark blue background and decorated with antastic headgear and lots of pearl jewellery. Whereas some portraits are designed as busts, others are only restricted by the rim of the picture. Hipolite was a master in creating monochrome profile portraits on a dark foundation. In this case he imitates a relief in the manner of trompe l' oeil. His portraits are characterized by a rich and impressive application of opaque white in the sitter' s hair and clothes which contrasts with the varnished incarnate parts in ivory. The sharp and precise contours emphasize the quality of the representation 2 and testify to an extraordinary skill, which gives his work a certain strictness.
B.P.
1 Cf. the profile portraits of ladies in the Louvre, in the Musée Dobrée in Nantes and in Bedouret 1977, pp. 199-202. In his article, Bedouret provides useful information on the identity of the artist known as Hipolite.
2 It is possible that Hipolite used a silhouette which he reduced with a pantograph when drawing the lady' s profile - a technique which was also used by François Gonord, who worked in the same period. Cf. Sturm 1996, pp. 107-108.
