Portrait of a Lady Writing a Letter

The AMAM collection includes over twenty miniatures, small portraits that often served as reminders of loved ones faraway. This work, the finest of the collection, depicts a young woman holding a letter on which the text "Mon cher ami"-My dear friend-is visible. This phrase was often used in the eighteenth century as an endearment from a wife to her husband. It is possible that the sitter's husband commissioned the work as a keepsake while he prepared for a separation. The woman's prominent ring -which probably held significance either as a wedding ring or other token of love- her attractive, forthright gaze, and action of writing to him would have provided comfort while they were apart.

Not much is known of the life of the artist Frédéric Dubois. He painted miniatures for the wealthy in Paris, St. Petersburg, and London in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Prior to the French Revolution, Dubois had worked for Louis- Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1736-1818), and the fact that Dubois left France for St. Petersburg in 1804 may indicate that he still held some loyalty to the House of Bourbon and was not in sympathy with post-Revolutionary ideals and Napoleon's rule.

This work can be dated to about 1797 by the woman's hairstyle and cravat-a traditionally male article of clothing that women adopted around that time. Female literacy was on the rise in the years during and after the French Revolution, but the ability to read and write was still a mark of the elite at this time. Depictions of women writing are very rare in miniatures-due to space constraints but also perhaps to the difficulty of painting hands-further enhancing the importance of this work.