Portrait of Étienne François, comte de Stainville, duc de Choiseul (mid to late 1700s): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Étienne François, comte de Stainville, duc de Choiseul (mid to late 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jacques Thouron (Swiss, 1740–1789).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Unlike fragile portrait miniatures painted in watercolor on vellum or ivory, which are prone to cracking, fading, and flaking, enamels are resilient, impervious to the effects of light, and retain their striking original colors over time. Partly for this reason enamel was considered ideal for reproducing famous paintings and treasured portraits in a reduced and luminous form. The complicated and labor-intensive process of enameling required the artist to fire numerous layers of colored metal oxide at different temperatures. This process made it difficult to produce a faithful portrait likeness, though masters of the medium like Jacques Thouron were able create portraits of remarkable subtlety imbued with the sitter's personality.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Étienne François, comte de Stainville, duc de Choiseul
• Date: mid to late 1700s
• Creator attribution: Jacques Thouron (Swiss, 1740–1789)
• Culture: Switzerland
• Type: Portrait Miniature
• Technique: enamel in a gilt metal and enamel frame
• Dimensions: Diameter: 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.); Diameter of frame: 8.4 cm (3 5/16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1921.912

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 8, no. 9 (1921): 138-41.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.