Death's Comfort
SOLD March 2004 |
Quarter plate daguerreotype, death view of young man with a mysterious hand comfortingly laid atop his, by "[Jean Victor?] Andrieux / Peintre en Miniature / Portraits au Daguerreotype / Place du Palais-Royale 243" [Paris], late 1840s.
Either deceased or closely approaching death, this young man gazes - with seeing eyes? - towards his own clasped hands and a mysterious hand from the left, laid atop his own, a comfort for that final journey from which, as the Greeks said, no traveler returns.
This image appears to be the work of Jean Victor Andrieux, active as a painter of miniatures as well as daguerreotypist.
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