Nicolas Lavreince

b Stockholm, 30 Oct 1737; d Stockholm, 6 Dec 1807).

Swedish miniature painter. He received his first training in miniature painting and gouache technique from his father, Niclas Lafrensen the elder (1698–1756), a self-taught miniature painter who had gained some popularity at the Swedish court. From 1762 to 1769 Lafrensen the younger studied in Paris, where French Rococo painting suited his temperament and was to be most important for his future development. His choice of realistic themes rather than those from the antique world led to his becoming a favourite of the public, though not of the academicians. On his return to Stockholm he obtained a commission from Crown Prince Gustav (later Gustav III) to paint 12 miniature portraits (1770; Stockholm, Nmus.), in connection with which he was appointed Royal Court Miniature Painter. He was accepted into the Kungliga Akademi för die Fria Konsterna in Stockholm but was passed over for a professorial appointment.

In 1774 Lafrensen left Sweden and settled in Paris, where he further developed the ‘cabinet-piece’, a type of painting popular at the time, piquant and elegantly descriptive of manners. He worked entirely on miniatures, first on ivory and later on paper or parchment. He used watercolour or gouache, and there are also sketches in ink and watercolour wash. His miniatures were widely circulated as copperplate engravings and coloured engravings. He was not an innovator; rather, his piquant anecdotes and racy insinuations were inspired by Watteau’s fêtes galantes and the risqué boudoir pictures of Boucher, Fragonard and Pierre-Antoine Baudouin. Rather than the stiff society life of the salons, he depicted the more intimate and familiar aspects of everyday life in a light, soft and harmonious style, as in a Young Lady’s Toilette and the Sultan’s Bath (both 1774; Paris, Louvre; see [not available online]). In 1778 he published a popular series of miniatures dealing with the life of a young noblewoman after leaving a convent, engraved by Robert de Launay. Although his work was celebrated in Parisian society, Lafrensen never achieved the artistic mastery of Peter Adolf Hall. Instead of Hall’s sweeping brushwork, he painted in the traditional pointillé technique. His miniatures often decorated oval or round boxes, and snuffboxes, in particular, were adorned with his anecdotal, usually racy, motifs. Placed in expensive settings, his miniatures also served as tokens of love or remembrance, and they were often worn as jewellery. Their prime interest lies in their fine, detailed depictions of the social milieu. In 1784 Gustav III visited Paris, and two miniatures survive from this trip, the Chinese Redoubt and Marie-Antoinette’s Evening Party at the Trianon (both Linköping, Östergötlands Länsmus.). The latter is not only a lyrical representation of nature but also a reportage of the party.

With the difficult circumstances of the French Revolution (1789–95), Lafrensen returned to Sweden in 1791 and found that there was not a great demand for the fête galante, although miniature portraits were still popular. In 1792 he was appointed court painter, and, until the arrival of Domenico Bossi (1765–1853) in 1797, he had little competition from other miniature painters. During the 1790s Lafrensen painted several portraits (e.g. Erik Magnus Stael von Holstein, 1792; Stockholm, Nmus.) that are clearly different from his French work. The backgrounds show Romantic scenes of parks in the English style, possibly an influence from the work of Elias Martin (1739–1818). In 1792 Lafrensen was appointed professor at the Konstakademi without teaching obligations and received a yearly lifetime pension from the Slottsbyggnadsfond (Castle Building Fund) in return for the annual production of two gouaches with themes from Swedish history. This task did not suit him, and it seems that he produced only six dry and prosaic miniatures with historical themes (Stockholm, Drottningholms Slott). His last years were spent quietly; his small circle of friends included his fellow artists Johan Tobias Sergel, Louis Adrien Masreliez and Elias Martin. A large number of his miniatures are to be found in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

A.-G. Wahlberg. "Lafrensen, Niclas." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T048734 (accessed April 27, 2012).