Charles-Paul-Jérôme de Bréa

Bernd Pape, Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten et Gerrit Walczak (dir.), European Portrait Miniatures, Artists, functions and collections, The Tansey miniatures Foundation, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg, Allemagne, 2014, 222 pages.
Actes du colloque international tenu à Celle, Allemagne en janvier 2013.

pp. 167-178:
Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard, "Charles-Paul-Jérôme de Bréa (1740-1820, his family and his work in miniature".

Résumé de l'article / Summary of the paper

Charles-Paul-Jérôme Bréa was portrayed by his friend Peter Adolf Hall in his first enamel in 1771, and later by Jean-Honoré Fragonard among his figures de fantaisie; he was close to Jean-Baptiste Greuze as well, for whom he copied his paintings in miniature. Though these connections alone would suffice to suggest quite an interesting artist, he seemed to have come out of nowhere, and nothing was known about his family or background. If all the sources agree that Bréa was born at around 1739, the discovery of his birth certificate in one of the forty parishes of Rouen not only yielded his exact birth date, 4 July 1740, but allows reconstitution of his entire genealogy and therefore identification of many other painters among his relatives. The paper lists for the first time a body of his work in miniatures, gives examples and analyses his work and technique in miniature.