AUGUSTIN, Jean-Baptiste-Jacques

(b. 1759 Saint-Dié, d. 1832 Paris)

French painter. After receiving instruction in art from Jean Girardet (1709–78) and Jean-Baptiste-Charles Claudot (1733–1805), he went to Paris in 1781, where he won recognition as a miniature painter. The miniatures he painted in the 1790s, for example his portrait of Mme Vanhée, née Dewinck (1792; Paris, Louvre), are among his most animated works; often portraying figures in a landscape setting, they develop the exuberant style of Niclas Lafrensen and Peter Adolf Hall. He also admired the work of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, whose Bacchante (Waddesdon Manor, Bucks, NT) in his own collection he copied in miniature (London, Wallace) and in enamel (Paris, Louvre).

A Bacchante

Augustin was a French miniaturist who revived the art in France. His paintings have strong, pure colours, certainty of execution and high finish.

This picture is copied from a painting by Greuze of c. 1794 which probably belonged to Augustin.

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Portrait of a Young Woman in Lilac Dress

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Portrait of the Sculptor Callamard

This portrait was executed when the sculptor Charles Antoine Callamard (1776-1812) was barely twenty-five old, winner of the Prix du Rome in sculpture in 1797. When it was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Vivants in 1801, the miniature drew the attention of the critics, who praised the unusual delicacy of its execution and the veracity of the sitter’s feature.

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