Pendant sized museum quality painting. The early ones are tiny. Coming forth from 250 years ago, this fashionable woman would have been among the Courtiers of ill-fated French King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette before the French Revolution. A gem, it's almost more like jewelry or a pendant than it is a portrait for wall display. Tiny perfect painting, her face is only 1/2" from chin to hairline, yet you can see her eyelashes, her longish nose and beautiful eyes so clearly. As if you can see the single hairs on her powdered coiffeur, she has a look of the actual Marit-Antoinette. Might well be her. Most later portrait miniatures of her are more stylized and, well, prettier than this young Queen. At least we will suggest it is a woman from their time, among likely favorites by the quality of the painting, frame and condition of both. Protected so well beneath the original slightly convex cover glass, the painting is 1 1/2" x 1 1/4" in total. Full measurements of the dore bronze frame are noted on the photos.
Very good to excellent condition throughout for age and type, there are no chips nor hairlines in the wafer, no flaws to frame or cover glass. I can see that my photos caught a few tiny specs of dust reflecting the lights, but they are no longer showing on the painting at all, blew away before re-mounting painting in frame. This is a hand painted portrait, gouache on wafer, at or over 250 years of age. A museum piece!
