Portrait of Jules Robert Auguste

Jules Robert Auguste was a French painter and art collector of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, known in his own time primarily as a collector of Asian and decorative arts whose hoard of objects later influenced Delacroix and the Romantic generation. Vincent painted his portrait in 1795, in the uncertain period immediately following the Terror and before the Directory had stabilised French political life. The portrait's absence from a named public collection suggests it remained in private hands for much of its history. Auguste as a subject is interesting precisely because his significance was less as a practising artist than as a cultural catalyst—his collections introduced a generation of French painters to non-European material culture. Vincent's portrait captures him at a relatively early stage of this collecting activity, before his influence on Romantic Orientalism had fully materialised.

Oil on canvas with Vincent's direct portrait approach, focused on the individual character of a fellow practitioner in the arts. The format is likely relatively modest, consistent with a portrait of an artist-collector rather than a grand public commission. The face receives the greatest technical attention, with clothing and background handled more broadly.