Attributed to Jean-Urbain GUERIN (Strasbourg,... Lot 60

Attributed to Jean-Urbain GUERIN (Strasbourg, 1761 - Obernai, 1836). Presumed bust portrait of Alexandre, comte de Lameth, in terracotta-colored frock coat and blue-green vest, circa 1790. Watercolor and gouache, tondo. Diameter: 6.5 cm. On the back, handwritten annotations probably dating from the early 19th century: "Lameth / par Guérin / 1760-1829". Alexandre de Lameth (1760-1829), an officer in the King's armies, served during the American War of Independence as colonel in the Royal Lorraine Regiment, under Rochambeau. But it wasn't the war that changed his mind. Like many young men, he returned from America with new ideas. An ardent Jacobin (a club of which he was a founding member), he maintained close relations with Americans, and in particular with his friend Thomas Jefferson. A member of the Cincinnati, his speeches to the Constituent Assembly were regularly published in the press across the Atlantic. A miniature of Alexandre de Lameth by Urbain Guérin is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. no. 61.77).