ANNA GAULT DE SAINT GERMAIN (WARSAW, 1760-PARIS, 1832) PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN WEARING A WREATH OF FLOWERS SELF-PORTRAIT ? Oval pastel Old restorations Signed on the left "Gault de St Germain / née Rajecka / fecit"; old auction label on the reverse bearing no. 3 Portrait of woman, oval pastel, with restorations, signed 61 x 50 CM - 24 x 19,6 IN. Exhibition Probably Salon of 1791, n° 166 (Oval portrait of a woman). Anna Rajecka was the daughter of the portrait painter Josef Rajecki. Her brother was also a painter. She trained with Marteau and Bacciarelli. Thanks to the patronage of Stanislas II, King of Poland, who sent her to Paris in 1783, Anna completed her artistic training, probably under the tutelage of Greuze and Vigée Le Brun. The king entrusted her with the task of painting a series of oil portraits of eminent people. His mature period in Paris was marked by compositions reminiscent of those of Kucharski, but with a softer, airier palette. In 1788, Anna married the miniaturist Pierre-Marie Gault de Saint-Germain. However, the French Revolution and the Terror forced them to flee to Clermont-Ferrand in 1792, where Anna continued to practise her art, painting portraits for local notables. In 1791, the critics presented the painting as Portrait ovale de femme, par madame Gault de Saint-Germain. "This pleasant head makes us wish that Madame Gault had painted herself. Then we could congratulate her on the pleasant roundness of her two hot-air balloons". Provenance : Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot (Maître Baudoin), 21 December 1934, no. 3 Bibliography: Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition, no. J. 34.1612 (Dame en robe blanche couronne de fleurs, circa 1810), accessed May 2024.