PERRONNEAU, Jean-Baptiste
(b. 1715, Paris, d. 1783, Amsterdam)

Portrait of a Boy with a Book

1740s
Oil on canvas, 63 x 52 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

This type of portrait, of a person reading, was characteristic of the late Rococo and enabled the artist to play on the model's shifting shades of mood, between seriousness and thoughtful reverie. In one of his finest painted works, Perronneau demonstrates a fine feeling for individuality that may have been assisted by his close knowledge of the sitter, who was possibly the artist's younger brother.