c. 1830-1870

Portrait of an Unknown Noblewoman

The sitter in this striking carved wax wears a luxurious evening dress that recalls the rich fabrics and frills of clothing worn in European royal courts in the 1600s and 1700s. The portrait is unusually large for a wax miniature and finely detailed, and the artist has distinctly rendered the textures of the floral lace and grosgrain silk. The minute, almost mechanical lines carved across the surface of the dress fabric recall nineteenth-century wood-engraving techniques.