Louis-Roland Trinquesse

Louis-Roland Trinquesse, a portraitist and genre painter, studied at the Académie Royale in Paris in 1758 and joined the Pictura artists’ cooperative in The Hague in 1767. From 1779 he exhibited regularly at the Salon de la Correspondance in Paris. A talented and sensitive portraitist, Trinquesse also made a name for himself as a genre artist. He painted interiors with elegant, sumptuously dressed ladies making music or engaged in conversation with courtly admirers as well as gallant scenes in the style of Fragonard set in lush, idyllic pleasure gardens. The artist gained further renown for his brilliantly drawn redchalk portraits of ladies lost in thought or rendered in casual pose.

The present study sheet drawn briskly from life is a delightful example of his very skilful drawing technique. It shows that Trinquesse was not only familiar with court scenes but also had an eye for everyday detail. The gestures of the boy playing are captured in splendid fashion and the two women dressed in middle-class style with their lace bonnets also appear extraordinarily true to life.