The Lady with the Veil. The Artist's Wife Marie Suzanne Giroust

The veiled beauty in Alexander Roslin’s portrait is his wife, Marie Suzanne Giroust, who was herself a prominent artist. She is dressed for a fancy-dress ball, in the Bolognese style. The attraction of this image builds very much on a play of opposites, such as intimate–inaccessible and seductive–reserved. The Lady with the Veil is one of the Nationalmuseum’s best-known paintings. It was exhibited in Paris in 1769, along with another portrait by Roslin, of a woman in African costume.

Credit: Gift 1945 Kooperativa Förbundet and Ms Hildegard Tamm