At the time of its acquisition, this charming oval portrait of a young child of the Comminges family was believed to have been painted by Elisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun (1755–1842), an attribution that had decided merits, but Joseph Baillio did not accept it into his catalogue raisonné of that artist, suggesting instead that it was a work by Rosalie Filleul.¹ However, having published his findings of the life and works of Marie Victoire Lemoine (1754–1820) in 1996, he reattributed the painting to her.² According to his research, Lemoine studied with the history painter François Guillaume Ménageot (1744–1816) between 1777 and 1785. Interestingly, her paintings reflect little of his grandiose manner, but instead bear a striking similarity to the works of Vigée-LeBrun. It is known that during the years Lemoine was his student, Ménageot rented an apartment in the house belonging to Vigée-LeBrun, and it is not inconceivable that, while working in the famous portraitist’s immediate vicinity, she fell under her influence.³ The present work, however, does not quite correspond with Marie Victoire Lemoine’s style as laid out by Baillio.⁴ In fact, it seems more likely that it is from the brush of Marie-Elisabeth Lemoine, Marie Victoire’s younger sister.

Unfortunately, little is known about Marie-Elisabeth Lemoine, the second of four daughters born to Charles Lemoine and Marie Anne Rousselle. It is not known, for instance, whether Marie-Elisabeth also studied with Ménageot, or whether her older sister served as her tutor. The two sisters certainly worked closely together; even their signatures are very similar.⁵ Marie-Elisabeth too was influenced by Vigée-LeBrun, but unlike Marie Victoire, who emulated her celebrated porcelain skin tones, she seems to have preferred a more matte finish. Baillio assigns a dozen works to her brush, all from the time before her marriage to Jean Frédéric Gabiou in 1789, and still signed with her maiden name.⁶ Recently a painting presumably depicting Henri Gabiou as a child, signed “m.e. Gabiou” and dated 1791, has surfaced on the art market (fig. 43.1).⁷ The little boy is most likely her son, but the resemblance of this little boy with the child in the Straus painting is striking.⁸ Not only are the facial features practically identical, even the lace-trimmed white shirts are so similar that it is possible they are the same garment. Stylistically, the softly brushed blond hair and the delicate handling of the lace strongly indicate the same hand. However, the Straus painting is more formal, dispensing with the descriptive addition of toys in favor of a neutral background, and may therefore have been a work painted on commission.

According to the provenance of the Straus painting, which states that the painting remained in the Comminges family until sold by the Countess Ginestet Puivert, née Comminges, to M. Knoedler & Co., who in turn sold it to Percy S. Straus in 1932, the sitter was a member of that ancient family.⁹ So far, the exact identity of this child, probably a little boy, has eluded our knowledge. If, in fact, he was the scion of this aristocratic family, he must have been born at the outbreak of the French Revolution, and it can only be hoped that he survived that tumultuous time as did this delightful portrait.

—Helga Kessler Aurisch