Lot 89: A self-portrait of the artist, in green cloak with plum-coloured velvet collar, claret-coloured coat, white waistcoat and knottted cravat, curly fair hair

JEAN-PHILIPPE GOULU (SWISS, 1786-1853) A self-portrait of the artist, in green cloak with plum-coloured velvet collar, claret-coloured coat, white waistcoat and knottted cravat, curly fair hair enamel on copper oval, 3¼ in. (84 mm.) high, gilt-metal frame

Christie's, London, 21 October 1997, lot 18.

PROPERTY FROM A BELGIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION


The Geneva-born miniaturist and enamel-painter Goulu worked in France until Napoleon's fall and emigrated to South America after 1815. From 1817 to 1824, he is recorded in Rio de Janeiro where he painted King John VI in 1819. He also went to Montevideo and, in 1816, to Buenos Aires where he settled down in 1824 and died nearly thirty years later. He may be considered as the most important miniaturist active in Latin America. For further information on this artist, see A. L. Ribera, El retrato en Buenos Aires 1580-1870, Buenos Aires, 1982, passim. Ribera (op. cit., opp. p. 140) illustrates a signed version of the present self-portrait, also in enamel, in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo, Buenos Aires.