Portraitist to European courts who painted Marie Antoinette more than thirty times.
Serene
Intimate
Self-Representation
Fun fact
She scandalised Paris by exhibiting a self-portrait showing her teeth, smiling with an open mouth broke a centuries-old portrait taboo.
How she made it
Rapid oil portraiture on a warm ground, blocking the head in a single sitting and finishing costume later. She thinned her paint with a light medium for translucent skin, and famously loosened hair and dress with dry, feathered strokes over a smooth underlayer.
Work
Comtesse de la Châtre (Marie Charlotte Louise Perrette Aglaé Bontemps, 1762–1848), 1789
