Madame David

Jacques-Louis David

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the lap up, a woman with peachy skin, wearing a white silk dress and feathered headpiece, sits facing and looking at us in a harvest-yellow, upholstered chair in this vertical portrait painting. She has blue-gray eyes and a rounded, slightly pink nose. Her thin lips are closed and pulled back with shallow dimples at the corners of her mouth. Chestnut-brown ringlets frame her face and fall to her shoulders under a white hat or headband covered with curling, billowing white feathers. Light reflecting off the cloth of her high-waisted dress suggests it is silk or satin. It has a lace-lined square neckline and puffed short sleeves. She crosses her arms at the wrist and her hands rest in her lap, holding opposite forearms. A red shawl with silver and blue trim wraps over her left arm, on our right, and bunches up behind her against the yellow chair. The artist signed and dated the work in yellow paint against the dark background behind the woman: “L. David 1813.”