Jean-Laurent Mosnier (1743-1808) - Woman Portrait dated 1796

Three-quarter length portrait of a woman richly dressed with a hat with a purple silk bow, a black dress with a white lace collar and handles belted with a silk ribbon.

Oil on canvas
Signed lower left J.L. Mosnier and dated 1796
Gilded wood frame with ogee and frieze of gadroons.

Court portraitist and miniaturist under the Ancien Régime, after the revolution he became a sought-after painter at European courts, from London to Saint Petersburg. His London works are particularly noteworthy and will allow him to represent more than thirty portraits, during five exhibitions at the Royal Academy.
Our Woman in the Hat must be one of the last commissions of this period; the subject presenting an English fashion outfit which recalls the artist's painting of the Marquise d'Aramon, who migrated to London after the Revolution. He was expelled from England in 1796 and went to Hamburg then Saint Petersburg. Tsar Alexander I will pose for him, as will Empress Elisabeth. He was appointed in 1806 as professor at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.

His paintings can be found in all the major museums in the world; the Louvre, the Hermitage and the academy in St Petersburg, Moscow and Versailles