Lot 490: Attributed to Jacques Guillaume Luciens Amans (French/New Orleans, 1801-1888), "Portrait of a Young Boy with Jewelry and a Book, Possibly a Relative/Descendant of the Hiller Family," ca. 1840s, H.- 36 in., W.- 29 in.

† Attributed to Jacques Guillaume Luciens Amans (French/New Orleans, 1801-1888), "Portrait of a Young Boy with Jewelry and a Book, Possibly a Relative/Descendant of the Hiller Family," ca. 1840s,
oil on canvas, unsigned, later inscribed "E/G Hiller" on top stretcher, unframed,

H.- 36 in., W.- 29 in.

New Orleans Antiquarian.

Note: This painting, despite its condition issues and novice repairs to the background and to the boy's lower jaw, possesses many of the attributes characteristic of Jacques Amans' works. After Jean-Jacques Vaudechamp left New Orleans in the late 1830s, Amans became the premier portrait painter, competing with A.D. Lansot, C.R. Parker, and newcomer Adolph Rinck, who arrived in 1840. Amans' was more adept at portraits of children and his portraits have a greater range of positionality with several members standing and/or in lush landscapes, as is the case with the well-known portraits of Clara Mazureau or Belizaire and the Frey children. Even his seated portraits often feature the waists and upper legs of the sitters, allowing greater visibility of thin elongated hands that are almost Mannerist in style. Most depictions of the period (with the exception of important politicians) were strictly bust views with no hands, or armless hands that dangle over arm rests or crests at the bottom of the canvases.

This work pays particularly close attention to the hands of a young educated boy ca. 11-13 years of age. While the right hand with a gold "pinky" ring firmly grips a leather-bound book, the left hand is centrally positioned in his lap with two gold twist-banded rings, one inset with a precious green emerald/stone. The horizontal position of the elongated hand loosely mirrors that of the bowtie- both of which are centered by another prominent piece of jewelry- a gold and pearl? laurel brooch pin in the middle of the white dress shirt. No other portrait in the Colonial Dames Louisiana Portrait book contains a portrait of a boy with such an abundance of jewelry, some possess a ring at most. The child clearly comes from a family of mercantile prominence- goldsmiths, jewelers, or wealthy merchants/cotton factors with bank holdings.

The early 20th inscription of the back stretcher of the painting E/G? Hiller indicates it was owned/descended in the Hiller family-another affluent French Alsatian Jewish family with Louisiana/Mississippi roots. Hertz Hiller (1827-1911), a prominent planter and merchant from France, married Julia Cerf in 1854 and established H. Hiller & Co. in Amite and then Summit, Mississippi. His children Jonas, Alfred and Adele continued in the business. His daughter married New Orleans cotton factor Samuel Hyman with Hyman-Hiller & Co. His sons Jonas and Alfred worked as cotton factors, bank directors, and manufacturers of construction materials. Jonas' son Charles married into the Godchaux family of New Orleans through which Hiller jewelers was established in 1918 by Alphonse Hiller. The portrait is possibly a member of Julia Cerf's family, or more likely descend in the family of one of her children/grandchildren (i.e. Godchaux) who also had ties with the Touro family. Prominent Jewish merchant and planter families in the region actively commissioned portraits in the mid-19th century. Two of the best known are portraits are by Adolph Rinck- Judah Touro (1849) and Louisiana senator and attorney Judah Benjamin (1853).

It is possible Adolphe Rinck could have painted this work, especially given his attenuation to jewelry, but the composition and scale are more suggestive of Amans. In the era before pre-fabricated canvases and stretchers, portrait painters in the 1830s-1840s offered paintings in three sizes: small/miniature, standard and large. Standard portraits typically ranged between 27 x 22 inches to 30 x 24/25 inches, and large 43/44 x 33/34 inches. Amans' preferred size for medium portraits 36 x 29 is consistent with this work, and certainly contains enough attributes of the artist to merit further inquiry.