Louis-Marie Autissier

Louis-Marie Autissier ( 1772 – 1830) was a French-born portrait miniature painter in the Netherlands. According to Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator of European painting, at the Cincinnati Art Museum, "Autissier's success as a miniaturist was in large measure due to his talent as a colourist and his meticulous detailing of costumes and accessory." He is considered the founder of the Belgian school of miniature painting in the nineteenth century. His works are in the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Nationalmuseum and the Royal Collection.

Biography Born in Vannes, in Brittany, Autissier studied art under Vautrin at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

The following years of his life were divided between Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. He exhibited works regularly at Salons in Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Paris; and was much employed in painting miniature portraits of the sovereigns, nobility, and celebrities of Belgium and the Netherlands. In 1806, after the Revolution, and the forming of the First French Empire he was named court painter to Louis Bonaparte, French King of the Netherlands from 1806 to 1810; and in 1815, court painter to Willem I, king of the Netherlands. These attractive studies of young women are described in the Salon catalogues as "portraits idéal", "études de fantaisie", or "figures de fantaisie", and generally priced between 400 and 600 francs, a considerable sum for the period. Many of the models in these miniatures wear the regional costume of Belgium and the Netherlands; others are more exotically clad in Circassian, Portuguese, or English dress. Altogether his paintings include more than 250 miniatures. Autissier died penniless in Brussels on 4 September 1830.