 |
| Charles Hénard Miniature portrait of a woman 1798 watercolor on ivory Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
 |
| Carl Fredrik von Breda Portrait of Teresa Vandoni, Italian singer at the Royal Opera, Stockholm 1797 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
 |
| circle of Jacques-Louis David Family portrait ca. 1795 oil on canvas Musée de Tessé, Le Mans |
"The French Revolution was made by the bourgeoisie. By that I mean roughly what Burke meant at the time, when he said that "the moneyed men, merchants, principal tradesmen, and men of letters . . . are the chief actors in the French Revolution," though obviously I differ from Burke in thinking that the coming to power of such men was part of an irreversible change in the social and symbolic order. "Part of," is sufficient here. Not "caused by" or "expression of." I am not interested in a narrative of causes. All I want or need to do, for my present purpose, is insist on the oddity of the word "People" in a revolution of this social character."
"An image will do better than a thousand words. There is a picture in the Le Mans Museum that for years was thought to be by David himself, and that I think must have come from someone in his inner circle. It is rightly held to be one of the most poignant documents to come down to us of the change that the revolution wrought in personal style. Nothing I can say will rob, or is meant to rob, the man in the center of the picture of his plain dignity. It is massive and touching. But for that very reason I think we should attend to the contrast between the father's careful symbolic déshabillé and the costumes of his sons and daughter, the china on the mantleshelf (one looks about for a terra-cotta Marat), the glimpse of picture-covered walls, the well-turned furniture, the spinet and the young girl's music lessons, the power to order this painting in the first place."
– T.J. Clark, from Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism (Yale University Press, 1999)
 |
| Louis-Léopold Boilly Portrait of Jan Anthony d'Averhoult 1792 oil on canvas Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
 |
| Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Portrait of the Marquise de Pezay with the Marquise de Rougé and her sons Alexis and Adrien 1787 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
| Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Self-portrait 1781 oil on canvas Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
 |
| Angelica Kauffmann Portrait of the Impromptu virtuoso Teresa Bandettini Landucci of Lucca 1794 oil on canvas Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
 |
| Joseph Duplessis Portrait of Christoph Willibald Gluck 1775 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
 |
| Anton Raphael Mengs Portrait of George, 3rd Earl Cowper ca. 1769 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
 |
| Jean-Honoré Fragonard Young woman ca. 1769 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
 |
| François Boucher Portrait of Madame Bergeret ca. 1766 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
 |
| Anton von Maron Portrait of Archibald Menzies 1763 oil on canvas Harvard Art Museums |
 |
| Antoine de Favray Portrait of Dr Salvatore Bernard with his wife and son 1759 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
 |
| Andrea Soldi Portrait of sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac 1751 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |