1781–1839Charlotte Martner
Born in Paris, Charlotte Martner embarked on a career in miniatures after likely learning to paint from her father who was an engraver. She relocated to the Caribbean in 1803, following a brief stay in Louisiana, with her husband. Her portrait of the sitter Lieutenant Colonel William Cleeve (1780–1831) was made during the capture of the French West Indies, where she was based in Martinique and managed enslaved people within the household, some of whom self-liberated. Charlotte remarried again, but following the death of her second husband and a period of financial hardship, she returned to France in 1821. Her records of earnings and purchases are held in her family’s estate.