The most successful painter of Geneva society during the eighteenth century was the pastel painter Jean-Etienne Liotard, one of the greatest of all artists working in that medium. This portrait tradition, with a preference for working on vellum or paper, was continued by three of the leading Geneva painters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century, Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849), Firmin Massot (1766-1849) and their exact contemporary, Wolfgang-Adam Tpffer. Since Geneva provided no opportunity for a sophisticated artistic training, Paris continued to be the artistic Mecca for all aspiring painters and both Tpffer and Agasse completed their studies there. Tpffer arrived in Paris in 1789 in the midst of revolutionary turmoil. His first master was the Flemish born J.B. Suve, a history painter of solid reputation who was later to become director of the French Academy in Rome. Tpffer's French training not only ensured that he was well schooled in draftsmanship, honing his technical skills but also exposed him to a changing and diverse artistic milieu. History painting held little attraction for him, however, and over the next five years he earned his living producing small-scale portraits in watercolour and gouache. Typical of these is the present portrait of a Lady in a Park. The sitter is the sister of Madame Jeanne-Antoinette Counis Tpffer (1774-1845) who married the young artist in 1793. Her husband, Mr Etienne Sayou was an engraver who later became an art dealer, and who developed a deep and long-lasting friendship with Tpffer. Madame Sayou is depicted here seated gracefully on an elaborately carved park bench, surrounded by delicate foliage, a stream and flowers in full-bloom with an embroidery basket at her side. The mood is one of leisure, elegance and romance, an atmosphere that Tpffer was particularly skilled at conveying. Comparable works include a small watercolour on paper sketch of Madame Counis Tpffer, currently in the Muse dart et dhistoire, Geneva -Cabinet des Dessins (Boissonnas, p. 27), a Portrait of Susanne Calas-Bousquet in a private collection (Boissonnas, p. 74) and a Portrait of a Lady, also in a private collection, exhibited in New York in 2003 (di Robilant-Voena, p. 56).
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