This striking mid-19th-century French portrait presents a male sitter standing calmly beside a table laid with the tools of scientific inquiry.
Dressed in a dark frock coat with carefully tied cravat and striped trousers, he meets the viewer with a direct, composed gaze. His posture is relaxed but purposeful, one hand resting near a mineral or inorganic specimen, the other holding a watch chain. The restrained interior setting and plain background focus attention entirely on the man and his work.
The objects depicted are unusually specific. On the table rests a brass compound microscope of mid-century type, with twin pillars, simple stage, and interchangeable lenses, suited to the examination of solid matter rather than biological specimens. Beside it are two identifiable scientific volumes: ‘Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 3e série, Tome XXI’ (published 1847), and ‘Analyse Chimique’ by Heinrich Rose. Their inclusion is deliberate. These are working texts, publications used by professional chemists and mineralogists engaged in contemporary analytical research.
There are no medals, no institutional insignia, no allegorical devices. Instead, the sitter’s professional identity is constructed through practice: books consulted, instruments used, and specimens handled. The microscope and mineral sample suggest active engagement with inorganic chemistry, crystallography, or mineral analysis, placing the sitter firmly within the modern scientific culture emerging in Europe during the late 1840s.
Stylistically, the work reflects the sober realism associated with French and Franco-German portraiture of the period. The modelling of the face is careful and controlled, the palette restrained, and the handling smooth without ostentation. The artist aligns the visual language of the portrait with the rational discipline it depicts.
Despite extensive research into contributors to ‘Annales de Chimie et de Physique’ around 1847, no secure identification of the sitter has been possible. This is not unusual. Many mid-career professional scientists of the period were not publicly celebrated and left little visual record. The anonymity of the sitter, rather than diminishing the work, reinforces its significance as a portrait of scientific professionalism itself - a representation of a new class of working intellectuals defined by method and experiment.
The painting is held in a mid-19th-century gilt frame with a reeded moulding and restrained corner ornaments.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 37½” x 47” / 95cm x 119cm
Year of creation: c. 1850
Provenance: Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Revarnished. Craquelure throughout. The paint layer is stable. Earlier patched repair. Frame in good condition with minor age-related wear.
Our reference: BRV2247
