Artist name Collas, Louis-Antoine
Proper name: Collas, Louis-Augustin
Cited Artist: Collas, Louis Augustin (1806)
Sex: m
Artist occupation: painter; portrait painter; miniature painter
Geographical data: France; Russia; United States
State: France; Russia; United States of America
Date of birth: 1775
Place of birth: Bordeaux
Date of death: 1833
Place of death: Paris?
Place(s) cited: St. Petersburg; Paris; Bordeaux; New York; New Orleans (Louisiana); Charleston (South Carolina)
Book Sources: AKL XX, 1998, 279

Born in Bordeaux, France, Louis Antoine Collas studied art in Paris with François André Vincent. An adept miniature and portrait painter, Collas first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1898 with a self-portrait. In 1808 he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, for three years where he painted miniatures and portraits of aristocrats and the czar's court. In 1812 he again began exhibiting at the Salon. Seeking patrons and exhibition opportunities, Collas arrived in New York City in 1816.

He traveled up and down the eastern seaboard, receiving commission in Philadelphia and Charleston and exhibiting at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York City and the

Somewhere around 1816-18 he traveled to in Charleston/South Carolina. He experienced short stays in Baltimore (1818) and Philadelphia (1819); and then once anew in New York in 1820. 1822-24 and 1826-29 he became a prominent miniaturist in New Orleans. In 1829 returned to Bordeaux, and around 1831/32 was noted in Paris, where he exhibited 1831 and again 1833 in the salon American Academy in Philadelphia.
Collas was among the earliest group of the European artists to work in New Orleans, which he reached in 1822. Until 1829 he visited Louisiana regularly, painting miniatures and portraits of the growing middle class of plantation owners and merchants. Although he is to have painted also large sized portraits, at present only portrait miniatures are well known. While the work of the early years in France of women, are characterized by a rigid uniformity, his Russian examples tend to exemplify self-willed realism.
WORKS

BORDEAUX, MAD: Two Works of Ladies, 1799/1800 and 1802. CAMBRIDGE/Mass., Harvard University AM. CHARLESTON / South Carolina, Gibbes Museum of Art. DEN HAAG, Mauritshuis: Großherzogin Katharina Pavlovna von Rußland, 1809. NEW ORLEANS/ La., Museum of Art: Viscount Bolingbroke, 1816. - Louisiana State Museum: 4 Portraits; 2 Miniatures, von Etienne de Bore. NEW YORK, Metropolitan Museum - American Jewish Society: Joshua Moses, 1804. ST. PETERSBURG, Hermitage: Großherzogin Anna Pavlovna von Rußland, 1809. WALTHAM/Mass., Amer. Jewish Historical Society, WORCESTER/Mass., AM: Unbekannter, 1817.

EXHIBITIONS
G: 1816, '20 New York, Amer. AFA / 1928 Bordeaux, MBA, Dép. d'Art Ancien: Expos. d'iconogr. bordelaise / 1936 Charleston, Gibbes AG: An exhibition of miniatures owned in South Carolina / 1982 Leningrad, Ermitage: Zapadnoevropeijskaia min. XVI-XIX wekow / 1990 New York, Metrop. Mus. of Art: Amer. min. in the Manney Coll. / 1991 Den Haag, Mauritshuis: Portrait in miniature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thieme-Becker 7, 1912 (Lit.). Groce/Wallace, 1957; DBF IX, 1961; Schidlof I, 1964; Young, 1968; Bénézit III, 1976 (bei allen [vier] auch s.v. C., Louis Augustin); Encyclopedia of New Orleans artists 1718-1918, New Orleans 1987; Blättel, 1992; Karel, 1992 (s.v. C., Louis-Augustin). - Großherzog N.M. Romanov, Portrait russes, II, StP. 1905-09, Taf. XCII, Nr 178; Lemberger, 1911; F.Lugt, Le portrait-miniatura, Am. 1917, 102, Abb. 49; T.Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, N.Y. 1921, 26; H.B. Wehle, American Minature, N.Y. 1927, Taf. XXXI; H.R. London, Min. and silhouettes of early American Jews, To. 1970, 49 s., 63, 137; Farr Thompson, 1970; J.Du Pasquier, Pierre-Edouard Dagoty et la min. bordelaise au XIXe s., Chartres 1974, 17-20; P.Pierrepont Bardo, Engl. and continental portr. min. The Latter-Schlesinger Coll. (K Mus. of Art), New Orleans 1978, 111; M.R. Severens, The min. portr. coll. of the Carolina Art Assoc. (K), Charleston 1984, 22-25; S.E. Strickler, American Portrait miniatures in the the Worcester AM Coll. (K), Worcester, Mass. 1989, 46 s.; K.E. Schaffers-Bodenhausen/M.E. Tiethoff-Spliethoff, The portr. min. in the coll. of the House of Orange-Nassau, Zwolle 1993, 63, 299, 485; L'âge d'or du petit portr. (K Bordeaux/Genf/Paris).