Ernest Chasseriau

This 1835 portrait of Ernest Chassériau at the Louvre depicts the artist's brother, painted when Théodore was sixteen. The series of family portraits from this early period documents both the close-knit Chassériau family and the extraordinary precocity of the teenage artist. Chassériau's oil technique combined Ingres's sculptural clarity of contour with Delacroix's warm Venetian colorism, creating works of unusual poetic power that influenced Gustave Moreau and later Symbolist painting.

The fraternal portrait is painted with remarkable assurance for a sixteen-year-old artist, the precise drawing and warm tones already revealing the distinctive style Chassériau was developing.