Art Institute of Chicago

Young Woman at a Table Holding a Cup

François André Vincent

Date

1790

Medium

Black and white chalks, with touches of red chalk, on tan laid paper, laid down on cream wove paper, with margins in blue laid paper and pen and iron gall ink

Culture

France

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

When François-André Vincent made this endearing portrait of Marie-Gabrielle Capet in 1790, he had just been appointed professor at the Royal Academy and curator of the king’s drawings collection. Capet came from Lyons to Paris to study with Vincent’s life-long companion, the portraitist and miniaturist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. Capet became her favorite pupil, then their housemate and model, and ultimately their caretaker in old age. The artist’s use of three chalks and deliberate grace reflects the preceding era of the Rococo more than the severity of the Neoclassical, revolutionary era.

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