Portrait of a Woman
Jean Petitot (Swiss, 1607–1691)
c. 1670
- Medium
- enamel in a silver gilt frame
- Classification
- Portrait Miniature
- Dimensions
- Framed: 2.9 x 2.2 cm (1 1/8 x 7/8 in.); Unframed: 2.3 x 2.1 cm (7/8 x 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- The Edward B. Greene Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this 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, which made it difficult to produce a faithful portrait likeness, though masters of the medium were able create portraits of remarkable subtlety imbued with the sitter's personality. The heyday of enamel painting was the late 1600s and early 1700s. Among the enamel specialists was Petitot, who was patronized by King Charles I of England, King Louis XIV of France, and King John III Sobieski of Poland.
