Modelled with an almost metaphysical consideration, this skilled study is a strong example of the tête d’expression, an academic practice developed in France around 1750. A formal competition of the same name was established within the Académie Royale in 1759 (the concours de la tête d’expression), with the purpose of advancing pupils’ proficiency in expressing a breadth of human expression. Here, the subject is not the sitter himself, but the gentle contemplation which preoccupies him: pupils were required to negotiate between individualisation and generalisation. Here, the sitter’s head is tilted and with a distant, upward gaze; a deliberate white stroke moistens the corner of his eye, both animating the passion of the particular meditation, and giving life to its originator. Comparison with other tête d’expression dates the work to approximately 1780-90, which alongside the sitter’s hair ‒ being unpowered and not a wig ‒ confirms the work as that of the late 18th century. His dress further comprises a red coat with a dark collar and loosely tied cravat, which swells in a flurry of broad strokes beneath his chin. It is probable that the work was created by a pupil of the Académie, perhaps in submission to the Prix de Rome. 

 

France’s academic hierarchy had traditionally prioritised history painting over portraiture, but a developing interest in physiognomy had begun to permeate the artistic output of the mid-18th century. Of only two stages of academic study which considered portraiture, the concours de la tête d’expression was required of each Prix de Rome aspirant. Designed to compensate for the limitations of traditional sculpture study, submissions typically codified varying facial structures or emotional expressions, and examined a given emotion (stubbornness, inspiration, melancholy, e.g.). Compelling within the viewer a degree of psychological interpretation, the exercise greatly expanded the significance of human expression, as ‘the source of life, movement and eloquence, the very soul of painting and the ultimate intellectual and spiritual challenge to the artist’ (Percival, p. 65). Leading proponents of the tête d’expression included Jean-Baptiste Greuze and Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, whose studies routinely circulated the market and established the dominating style. Female sitters were typically preferred, whose enthusiastic ‘passions’ often possessed a certain eroticism for the works’ vastly male audience.

 

The present work is a confident example of the genre, and particularly close in handling to the work of Jacques-Augustin-Catherine Pajou (1766-1828) and Jean-Louis Laneuville (1756-1826). Formulating a distinctive technique of its own, areas of subtle blending are overlaid with more assertive brushwork, particularly the roundly shaped touches of colour which form the nostrils and right eye. The generous colouring of the upper face ‒ pink, yellow and blue pigments are married within one passage ‒ and shaved jawline contribute to a marvellous depth. More so, a subtle chiaroscuro effect shades the left half of the face, consisting only of an unfinished layer of two of translucent pigment. Naturally concerned with the face itself, less labour has been taken with the gentleman’s fashion, which is loosely though confidently worked. Indeed, the dark jacket collar appears translucent above a broader white shirt collar beneath. Possibly the natural result of pigment degradation, this might otherwise suggest the later reworking or addition of the garment ‒ perhaps a pentimenti of the artist, or the fashionable completion to a head study with the purpose of increasing the painting’s value on the market. The partially translucent tonal ground is lighted with dramatic emphasis around the sitter’s silhouette. Typical of such studies, this mode was favoured by François-André Vincent, Guillaume Voiriot, Antoine Vestier, and Alexander Roslin, among others. 

 

I am most grateful to Laura Auricchio and Jean-Pierre Cuzin for their consideration of the present work.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY & FURTHER READING:

 

Sarah Betzer, Ingres and the Studio: Women, Painting, History (Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012)

Yuriko Jackall, Jean-Baptiste Greuze et Ses Têtes d’expression la Fortune d’un Genre (Paris: CTHS, 2022)

Melissa Percival, The Appearance of Character: Physiognomy and Facial Expression in Eighteenth-Century France (Leeds: W. S. Maney and Son Ltd., 1999)