Renoldguy (?) - portrait of a unknown man

A valuable reference for collectors of French miniatures is Les Peintres en Miniature by Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard. But, unfortunately, the artist who painted this miniature does not seem to feature in that dictionary, nor in Blattel, and hence appears to be a previously unrecorded French artist.

The signature is very hard to read and any assistance in identifying the artist would be gratefully received. It appears never to have previously been out of its frame, and so the faint writing is compounded by dirt which has seeped under the glass for over 200 years. It has been possible to brush some of the dirt off with a dry brush, but it is still very hard to read.

One guess is Renoldguy, but that is not a French name, neither are "renoldque" nor "renalaque"; another possibility is to read it perhaps as : Renold pinx

The artist is seen to be competent, without being outstanding. The main interest being the discovery of a previously unrecorded French artist who appears to have worked around 1790.

The miniature is only 60mm in diameter and so comes within the French modest school, that is a miniature of smaller size, rather than suggesting it is by an artist of modest ability. 1406