Jean Jacques Caffiéri
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Wearing a powdered wig, the celebrated sculptor Caffiéri is portrayed as a gentleman, with a tricorne under his arm and a dress sword at his side, as if ready to visit Versailles. Wertmüller depicted with admirable realism the luxuriant red velvet of the sitter’s habit à la française, lined with lustrous, slightly puckering white satin. Caffiéri’s matching waistcoat, trimmed with gold braid and embroidery, and the lace cuffs of his shirt and jabot (the ruffle at his neck) are quintessential examples of the costly fabrics and embellishment used for eighteenth-century French menswear.
Artwork Details
- Title: Jean Jacques Caffiéri
- Artist: Adolph Ulrich Wertmuller (Stockholm 1751–1811 Naamans Creek, Delaware)
- Date: 1784
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: Unframed: 50 3/4 × 37 3/4 in. (128.9 × 95.9 cm)
Framed: 65 1/2 × 54 1/2 in. (166.4 × 138.4 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Purchase, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund (63.1082)
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts