Ernest Chasseriau enfant

This 1837 portrait of Ernest Chassériau as a child at the Louvre depicts the artist's brother at a younger age than the 1835 portrait. The intimate childhood portrait reflects the close family bonds that sustained Chassériau throughout his brief but brilliant career. 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 child's features are rendered with tender precision, Chassériau's refined drawing capturing the innocence and vitality of childhood with the warmth that characterized his family portraits.