Live Auction 5962Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
D. M. (FRENCH, FL. C. 1788-1796), AFTER LOUIS-MARIE SICARDI (FRENCH, 1746-1825)
Lot 428 THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN GENTLEMAN

D. M. (FRENCH, FL. C. 1788-1796), AFTER LOUIS-MARIE SICARDI (FRENCH, 1746-1825)

Closed28 November 2012

Price Realised

GBP 3,500

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D. M. (FRENCH, FL. C. 1788-1796), AFTER LOUIS-MARIE SICARDI (FRENCH, 1746-1825)
Marie-Jacobée Prunet, née Balguerie (d. September 1829), in white muslin dress with knotted fichu and blue sash, pink rose at corsage, light blue striped bandeau in her curling upswept hair, holding a pansy in her left hand, seated and leaning against a stone wall; landscape background
signed with monogram and dated 'DM 178[.]' (lower right)
on ivory
3 in. (76 mm.) diam., modern gilt-metal frame with glazed reverse

By family descent.
Christie's, London, 21 October 1997, lot 64.

Specialist note

An unsigned variant of the present miniature by Sicardi is in the Louvre (see P. Jean-Richard, Miniatures sur ivoire. Musée du Louvre. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 1994, no. 586).
Marie-Jacobée Balguerie, a daughter of Jean Balguerie and Marguerite Tarteyron, was married to André Prunet (d. 1799).
The sitter belonged to a well-known family of ship-owners from Bordeaux. This substantiates the theory put forward by Jacqueline Du Pasquier that the elusive artist D.M. worked in Bordeaux (see exhibition catalogue l'âge d'or du petit portrait, Bordeaux, Geneva, Paris, 1995-1996, pp. 48-49, 140, no. 205).