This exquisitely refined ivory portrait depicts Marie-Victoire Jaquotot (1772–1855), pupil and second wife of Etienne-Charles Le Guay. Le Guay was born at Born at Sèvres, the son of the porcelain painter Étienne Henri Le Guay. The younger Le Guay was a pupil at the Manufacture Impériale de Sèvres from 1771, working there in the 1780s and becoming a pupil of Joseph-Marie Vien in 1782. From 1800 onwards, he also worked for another famous porcelain factory, that of Dihl et Guerhard. Between 1795 and 1819, Le Guay exhibited miniature portraits at the Salon, some on porcelain, and achieved renown as one of the finest miniaturists of his time, painting scores of Bonaparte family portraits, especially of Pauline.
Le Guay married no fewer than three of his own pupils. The first was Marie-Sophie Giguet (d. 1801), daughter of a painter at the Académie de Saint-Luc; a portrait on ivory of the couple by Le Guay survives in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF1437). Upon her death, Le Guay wed another pupil, Marie-Victoire Jaquotot, whom he divorced in 1809, only to marry another of his pupils, Caroline de Courtin, in the same year. Each of Le Guay’s wives was an accomplished miniaturist in her own right, and both Jacquotot and Courtin also painted porcelain at the Sèvres manufactory. Nevertheless, the former of the two was undoubtedly the superior artist, decidedly famous in her own day for her outstanding skills.
In the present image, Jacquotot, considered a legendary beauty of her era, is shown in an Empire-style setting, denoted by the marble column and great Grecian vase in the left background, as well as by the reddish-mauve sofa upon which she is poised, its armrest embellished with a distinctively ancient Egyptian motif. Jacquotot is fancifully costumed in a form-fitting white silk gown, her head draped with a white gauze veil, while golden bracelets encircle her wrists and upper arms. She glances up to meet the viewer’s gaze, as if interrupted as she leafs through a portfolio of drawings or prints. For example, in one hand, Jacquotot holds an image of the tondo known as the Madonna della Sedia (Palazzo Pitti, Florence). This image would feature prominently in the breakfast set she would produce in 1813, in which each piece was adorned with an image of a different Madonna by Raphael. Jacquotot presented the impressive set to the Empress Marie Louise (see pp. XX).
Trained by her future husband, Jaquotot emerged as one of the greatest porcelain artists of her time. She initially worked for Dihl and Guerhard, developing original ceramic colours that remained intact in the kiln, as well as gaining renown as a figure painter at the Sèvres manufactory from 1800 onwards. There, she painted the Empress Josephine’s portrait in 1801, and won a gold medal for her work at the Salon in 1808. Under the Restoration, Louis XVIII granted her the title of Peintre du Cabinet du Roi with an annual pension of 1,000 francs, and later honoured her with the title of Premier Peintre sur Porcelaine. Jaquotot ran a highly independent workshop within the Sèvres manufactory, often copying works from the Louvre in sophisticated porcelain iterations, as well as hosting a brilliant salon in Paris, where she demonstrated her remarkable gifts as a pianist. She continued to work for Sèvres until 1846, but fell out of favour during the July Monarchy. She was stripped of all of her titles, as well as her privilege of borrowing works from the Louvre to make copies. Critics nevertheless continued to praise her: “Mme Jaquotot still holds the sceptre of porcelain painting.”

Yet despite her many talents, entrepreneurial spirit, and great popularity in court circles, Jaquotot’s personal life was not without conflict. Despotic and presumptuous, her marriage to Le Guay in particular was rife with strife. Their divorce in 1809 took place seven years after the birth of her only son, Philippe, the result of a passionate but ephemeral affair with the twenty-one-year-old architect Jean Comairas, who was more than ten years her junior. She later remarried an obscure stock holder, J. Pinet. Nevertheless, enclosed in a handsome golden frame, this splendid object offers a rare window into the world of the highly accomplished women artists who raised the production and profile of the Sèvres manufactory to new heights of refinement and creativity.
Another version of the present composition, also on ivory and signed by Le Guay, may be found in the collections of the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. RF 30768, gift of David David-Weill).