Augustin Fils

A painter and miniaturist as well as an aeronaut, Augustin fils pursued two distinct practices in parallel: his miniatures were based on silhouettes painted in watercolour, cut out and then pasted onto coloured paper, while his ascents involved him in aeronautical experimentation. Born in Dijon on 15 September 1779 under the name Charles-Henri Augustin, he was the son of Georges Nicolas Toussaint Augustin, known as Augustin Dubourg, and Jeanne Forestier, and the nephew of the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin. He enrolled at the age of fifteen at the school of the Académie de Paris and took lessons from his uncle in 1800. He worked under several artist names: Augustin jeune, Augustin fils and Augustin neveu. An auction catalogue describes a round miniature portrait, dated 1803, depicting a young man in profile. Executed in graphite and watercolour on paper, it bears the signature and the inscription “Augustin fils Invt & f. 1803” at the centre.

Alongside his work as a painter, he turned to balloons and parachute jumps. On 6 September 1812, he made an ascent before the public in Arras; an unsigned watercolour held at the Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais documents the event. In a letter about him, he states that it was his eighteenth air journey and that the flight had ended in a plain between Acheux and Léalvillers. Before Arras, he had made ascents in Versailles, Paris, Rouen, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Lille, Douai and Cambrai, among other places. Accounts also report on his thirtieth to thirty-third ascents, made in Lyon in 1817. His flights also involved measurement: his gondola was equipped with a thermometer, a barometer, an electrometer and a hygrometer. He married Julie-Victoire Merle de Beaulieu in 1797 and had four children. He died in Paris on 29 September 1819, aged forty.

Works recorded at auction

Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer · Lot 105

Rundes Miniatur Portrait eines jungen Mannes im Profil, 1803

Grafit und Aquarell auf Papier

Catalogue period : 2026-03-11

Published result : 1016 CHF

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : CHF 800–1000

View the lot at the auction house ↗