Jean-Claude Fulchiron (1774-1859) - Portrait of Pauline Guérin de Foncin

Jean-Claude Fulchiron (Lyon 1774 - Paris 1859).
Portrait of Pauline Guérin de Foncin, aged 4.
1808.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated lower left: Fulchiron / 1808.
H: 129.5; L: 86 cm (51 x 33 ?/? inches)

This portrait of Pauline Guérin de Foncin takes up the iconography of the child portrait developed by the Lemoine sisters and their cousin Jeanne-Élisabeth Gabiou, notably the portrait of Marie-Laëtitia Murat carrying a bust of Napoleon I by the latter executed in 1806 (Fesch museum ).
Our portrait is also very close (in the treatment of the drapery, the lace and the presence of the same puppet), to the presumed Portrait of Henri Gabiou with a game cart, playing at blowing bubbles by Marie-Élisabeth Lemoine or even of his Little Girl with Cherries as for the face.

Pauline Gabrielle Guérin de Foncin (1804-1895) is the daughter of Jean-François Guérin de Foncin, a rich Lyon banker. The portrait was probably commissioned by the latter from Jean-Claude Fulchiron. This close relative of the model notably exhibited at the Salon of 1799 and would become an eminent political figure in Lyon at the beginning of the 19th century.