Object Image

Portrait of a Young Woman in White

The sitter in this painting is unknown - in fact even the artist is in question. Thought to be in the style of Jaques-Louis David it is unclear exactly who painted it.

Jaques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity and severity and heightened feeling, harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.

David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the Fr...

c. 1798
Oil on canvas
125.5 x 95.0cm
1963.10.118
Image © National Gallery of Art, 2020

Where you'll find this

National Gallery of Art
Permanent collection