Portrait de Jean-Baptiste Corsse (1760-1815), acteur

Dating to 1805, the portrait demonstrates the conventions of nineteenth-century portraiture during the tumultuous era of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Louis-Léopold Boilly, a French painter who brilliantly captured Parisian street life across four political regimes, brings smooth finish to the depiction of the sitter. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays miniaturist precision in oil, meticulous rendering of fashionable dress and domestic interiors, genre scenes crowded with sharply observed social types.

The portrait is rendered with smooth finish that characterizes Louis-Léopold Boilly's best work. Oil on canvas provides a rich ground for the subtle gradations of flesh tone and the textural contrasts between skin, fabric, and background that give the image its convincing presence.