JEAN-ETIENNE LIOTARD (SWISS, 1702-1789)

As pointed out in M. Roethlisberger and R. Loche (op. cit., I, p. 103), only thirty-four miniatures and twenty-eight enamels by Jean-Étienne Liotard are presently known. His earliest signed and dated enamel miniature of 1722 depicts Séléné et Endymion (Geneva, Musée de l'horlogerie et de l'émaillerie, inv. E 137). It is only twenty years later that Liotard re-introduced the habit of signing and dating his works, beginning in 1746 with his breathtaking enamel of Andrienne Cannac (Roethlisberger Loche, op. cit., II, fig. 259). The present enamel belongs to this unsigned and undated period, more precisely to the years around 1736 to 1742, corresponding to Liotard's sojourns in Italy and Constantinople.
Technically, it is closest to Liotard's enamel portraits of Princes Charles Edward and Henry Benedict Stuart (see Roethlisberger Loche, op. cit., I, pp. 254-258). Both the technique and a certain physical resemblance have led to the suggestion that the present portrait depicts Prince Charles Edward Stuart, The Young Pretender. Liotard's mastery of the art of enamel painting is displayed by the natural-looking, deeply intense colour of the raspberry coat and the convincing modelling of the face obtained by minimal red hatching, precursory to late 19th century impressionist pointillisme.