Auguste Jean-Baptiste Vinchon

Olivier Le Fuel, Paris

The painting is unlined. This painting is in excellent condition and may be hung in its current state. Still unlined, the painting has retained its coloration very well and still has impasto on the collar. There are a few minor retouches visible under UV in the upper-middle background. A light varnish appears to have also been applied to the hair of the sitter. In a carved giltwood frame.
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Vinchon, a pupil of Serangeli and David, entered the Prix de Rome in 1813 and won second prize with the Death of Jacob.  The following year he won the Grand Prix with the subject Diagoras Carried in Triumph by His Sons, earning him a stay at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1814-1819.  Upon his return to France, he was commissioned to paint frescoes for the Chapelle Saint-Maurice in Saint-Sulpice, Paris and, in 1830, he won two large commissions:  The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple for Nôtre Dame de Lorette, Paris and Boissiy d'Anglas Saluting the Severed Head of the Deputy Féraud  for the decoration of the Salle des Séances in the National Assembly.  The latter commission was won over several more established artists, including Delacroix.  Vinchon also exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1822-1855.

The sitter, Nency Destouches, may be the daughter of the painter Paul-Emile Detouches, called Destouches (1794-1874), who excelled in the depiction of genre subjects in the Paris Salons between 1817-1841.