Lot 129: JEAN PETITOT (SWISS, 1607-1691)

JEAN PETITOT (SWISS, 1607-1691)
A lady, in blue dress with red-striped gold gauze décolletage, pearl necklace, drop-pearl earrings, upswept chestnut hair dressed in ringlets
enamel on gold
oval, 1 1/8 in. (29 mm.) high, gold frame set with four emeralds alternating with four light pink enamel trefoils on translucent red champlevé enamelled foliate border flanked with green enamelled flutes, the reverse with opaque black enamelled foliate border

Carl Eltzbacher (1854-1936) Collection, Cologne.
His son Hans Eltzbacher (1893-1969); Christie's, London, 8 June 1971, lot 44 (as Duchesse de la Vallière).

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
The sitter in the present miniature can be compared with a miniature by Jean Petitot of a lady called Mademoiselle de Blois, Princesse de Conti (1666-1739) in the Jones Bequest at the Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. 669-1882. As with many of Petitot's enamels, it is difficult to identify either sitter with certainty; however, both enamels probably date to the period in which Petitot painted the leading figures of the court of King Louis XIV of France. The sitter's costume and the use of gold as the support suggest that the she was a member of the aristocratic elite and can be compared to a slightly larger enamel of a lady called Madame de Montespan, sold Christie's, London, 7 December 2004, lot 105.