Lot 84: u - *Robert-Jacques-François-Faust Lefèvre1755-1830

Signed: R. Lefevre and inscribed under the left pilaster: Mendoze 1820 (?).Gouache and watercolor, with gum arabic, within a drawn oval, an added strip of paper at the upper edge. Lefèvre developed a considerable reputation as portrait painter and was especially renowned for his fashionable portraits of women. He exhibited his work, mostly portraits, at the Salons between 1791 and 1827. Lefèvre obtained many commissions for portraits of Napoleon and his family, and eventually became the Emperor's official portrait painter. A gouache oval portrait by the artist of the Empress Marie-Louise, of similar dimensions to the present sheet, was formerly in the Alfred Beurdeley collection (sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 30 November-2 December 1920, lot 284).