Portrait of a Man

Although the size of this carefully worked crayon drawing is modest, it is actually much larger than a typical work by Jean-Baptiste Augustin. As a leading painter of ivory portrait miniatures in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Augustin stood out because of the precision and naturalism of his style. Although the sitter in this drawing is no longer known, Augustin's naturalistic technique and the sitter's slight, easy smile encourage a familiar connection with the viewer.