
Collection Online as of May 28, 2022
(French, 1727-1775)
Oil on canvas
Bequest of John L. Severance 1942.638
216B French and German
Like many French portraitists active during the ancien régime, François-Hubert Drouais was skilled at veiling the physical imperfections of his subjects. This portrait certainly has this quality: the face has been idealized, smoothed, and perfected, but the focus of the painting is less on the Marquise and more on her elegant gown, which is a particularly fine rendering of eighteenth-century printed cloth, with the brilliant gold and white fabric strewn with meticulously detailed flowers and lace.