Portrait of a Man

Lambert is believed to have been born in Geneva. A pupil of Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin (see 17.190.1120a, b), he worked in Paris painting portraits in oil and miniatures on ivory and in enamel. He exhibited in the Salons of 1801, 1802, and 1812.

The portrait is set in the lid of a box made of figured wood lined with tortoiseshell. Miniatures by Lambert are rare. Leo R. Schidlof, who in 1952 pronounced this an excellent example of his work, cites only a grisaille profile by him (The Miniature in Europe, Graz, 1964, vol. 3, pl. 336, fig. 679). Pappe (2015) includes The Met’s miniature among four copies after a work of the mid-1790s by Augustin (one of which was sold at Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, May 28, 2014, no. 369, as Workshop of Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin, ca. 1800, ivory, diameter 75 mm).

[2016; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

Inscription: Signed and dated (left edge, in pencil): Lambert pt. 1801.

Mrs. Louis V. Bell (until 1925)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 192.

Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, p. 158, no. 192, ill. p. 159.

Bernd Pappe. Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin, 1759–1832: Une nouvelle excellence dans l'art du portrait en miniature. Verona, 2015, pp. 262–63, no. 269, ill., calls it a copy after an original from the mid-1790s by Lambert's master, Augustin, and mentions three additional copies after the same work.