AUGUSTIN Charles-Henry dit AUGUSTIN Neveu, fils ou jeune (Dijon, 1779 - Paris, 1819). Portrait of a man in profile to the left, wearing a brown suit and white vest with high collar, Directoire period. Miniature gouache on silhouette-cut cardboard Signed and dated on the right in red under the frame: "Augustin (trois points en triangle) inv. & Fecit 18[0]2", Diam. at sight 6 cm, blackened wood frame (iridescent glass). A freemason miniature painter and intrepid aeronaut (balloon and parachute), Ch. Augustin was the nephew of Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin and the son of Augustin-Dubourg, miniaturists. Under the Empire, he advertised "portraits of his invention, called colored silhouettes, made in fifteen minutes and priced at 6 fr."; this miniature is a rare example, one of the earliest known. The artist follows his signature with three dots in a triangle, a sign of his membership of Freemasonry. Bibliography La Lettre de la miniature n° 23, March 2014, p. 2-4.