Le monogramme « DM » pour toute signature : un mystérieux miniaturiste de la fin du XVIIIe siècle enfin démasqué.

This miniaturist was thought to have worked both in Bordeaux and Paris between 1785 and 1786. Miniatures were found in these two cities, signed simply with an inconspicuous monogram consisting of the interlaced letters ‘DM’. His identity, which has long puzzled scholars, is revealed in the present article intended to shed light on the reasons behind the artist’s discretion and to describe his career. Jean-Louis-Dominique Duvaucel (Paris, 1749-Paris, 1830) came from a family of fermiers généraux (tax farmers-generals) who had acquired a fortune over two generations. He proclaimed himself lord of Marsoeuvre when he married, a rather unfounded claim given that the lordship, located close to Bourges, had been sold by his father. After his family went bankrupt, Duvaucel de Marsoeuvre stopped using the tarnished name of Duvaucel and settled under the pseudonym Marsoeuvre as a miniature painter in Bordeaux. He became friends with the painter Pierre Lacour. Serving in the army during the Revolution, then in the national guard, he was incarcerated during The Terror. Over thirty miniatures by him are known, all of them finely executed and charmingly naïve, two of which are now in the Lambinet Museum in Versailles and one at the Design and Decorative Arts Museum in Bordeaux.