Shop art print and framed art Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife by Jacques-Louis David

The Portrait of Antoine Lavoisier and His Wife was painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1788. It depicts the chemist Antoine Lavoisier and Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, his wife and collaborator. The painting was commissioned from David by Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who had taken private lessons with the artist, and paid for on 16 December 1788, at a price of 7,000 livres tournois. Spectroscopic analysis of the painting revealed an early version in which Madame Lavoisier wore an imposing Tarare-style hat with ribbons and flowers. As this fashion accessory became very popular in the autumn of 1787, it is likely that the painter began work on it that same year. Although it was completed in time for the Salon of 1789, it was not exhibited there at the request of Lavoisier, who was then involved in a political scandal. In 1836, the year Marie-Anne died, the Portrait was bequeathed to her great-niece. The painting remained in the collection of the Countess de Chazelles and her descendants at the Château de la Canière near Thuret (Puy-de-Dôme) until 1924. It was bought by John Davison Rockefeller, who donated it in 1927 to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. The portrait was acquired in 1977 by the Wrightsman family, who donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It has been described by the Met as "the finest neoclassical portrait in the world". The painting is a double portrait remarkable for its large size (259.7 cm by 196 cm), traditionally reserved [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the classical period. It belongs to the neoclassicism style.

 

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