Miniature Portrait of Saint Fabiola in Brass and Boulle Frame

Details

Description

Miniature Portrait of Saint Fabiola in Brass and Boulle Frame

Oil on porcelain, 19th century
Dimensions: 5.58” H × 4.75” … Read more Miniature Portrait of Saint Fabiola in Brass and Boulle Frame

Oil on porcelain, 19th century
Dimensions: 5.58” H × 4.75” W

This miniature presents Saint Fabiola of Rome (d. 399 CE) in the infamous profile pose, her head draped in a red veil. The image is painted in oil on a thin, oval porcelain plaque, a support prized in the 18th–19th centuries for its smooth surface and for enabling fine brushwork at a small scale. The plaque is set within a brass frame with red tortoiseshell inlay.

Condition: Good overall, with minor surface wear and handling marks consistent with age.

The composition and manner of this miniature belong to a visual lineage that grew after Jean-Jacques Henner’s celebrated 1885 portrait of Fabiola. Henner’s depiction, a young woman in profile wearing a rich red veil, became an iconic prototype and was widely copied in a range of media (oil, enamel, ivory and porcelain) for both devotional use and the decorative market. See less