Emmanuel Peter (1799-1873) Portrait Of A Dandy With A Cigar Austria Vienna

Emmanuel Thomas Peter
(Jaegerndorf 1799 – Vienna 1873)
Portrait of a Dandy with a Cigar
Gouache
H. 11 cm; W. 8.6 cm
Signed and dated on the left side
1849

Born in Austria in 1799, Emmanuel Thomas Peter belongs to that generation of artists who perfected the art of miniature painting at its zenith, before its decline in the face of photography. A student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, Peter distinguished himself by his extreme precision of line and his sense of psychological depth. His portraits, of understated elegance, reveal a particular attention to the effects of light and textures, which he transposes with rare virtuosity onto very small supports.

Our portrait of a Dandy with a Cigar, dated 1849, perfectly illustrates Peter's refined art. Executed in gouache on ivory, this miniature combines the finesse of the drawing with a subtly nuanced palette. The figure, an elegant young man with carefully styled hair, wearing a dark coat and holding a cigar, embodies the figure of the mid-19th-century dandy: studied elegance, a distant demeanor, and a confident modernity. The model's gaze, both self-assured and melancholic, reflects the tension between appearance and inner self, a theme dear to the Romantic society of the time.