Madame de Pastoret and Her Son
Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
1791–92
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
The volatile events of the early years of the French Revolution make it impossible to determine with certainty the date of Jacques-Louis David’s warm, fresh portrait of Adélaïde de Pastoret. They also probably account for the portrait’s unfinished state. David, a renowned Neoclassical painter, was at the time an ardent revolutionary; Madame de Pastoret was the wife of a staunch royalist. The sittings must have occurred after the birth, early in 1791, of her son, who is portrayed asleep by her side, and before her brief imprisonment during the Reign of Terror in 1792. Here David completed the stippled, almost monochromatic underpainting but did not create the stark, enamel-smooth surface that is characteristic of his finished paintings. He did not even get far enough to place a needle and thread in Madame de Pastoret’s hand. Nevertheless, this large portrait of unaffected domesticity captures the youthful mother with charm as well as dignity and displays David’s skill as a portraitist. Objecting to David’s revolutionary ideals, Madame de Pastoret (who became the Marquise de Pastoret in 1817) refused the painting during the artist’s lifetime. After David’s death, she had her son, by then an adult, purchase the portrait from the artist’s estate.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 129.8 × 96.6 cm (51 1/8 × 38 in.)
Museum record · 4 owners · 8 exhibitions
Provenance
- In the artist’s possession until his death in 1825; inventoried on February 27, 1826, at the apartment of his son Eugène, rue Cadet, Paris; sold in David’s atelier sale, rue du Gros-Chenet, Paris, April 17, 1826, for Fr 400, to Révile, acting on behalf of Emmanuel de Pastoret.
- Claude Emmanuel Joseph Pierre, marquis de Pastoret (died 1840), Château de Fleury-Meudon, Seine-et-Oise; by descent to his granddaughter, Marie de Pastoret (died 1890), who in 1835 married Hervé de Rougé, marquis du Plessis-Bellière; sold Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 10–11, 1897, for Fr 17,900, to Chéramy.
- Paul Alfred Chéramy, Paris; sold Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 5–7, 1908, for Fr 41,000, to Georges Petit, Paris.
- Comtesse Joachim Murat (née Thérèse Bianchi; died 1940), Paris, by 1909; at her death to her sister, vicomtesse Fleury (née Renée Bianchi; died 1948); at her death to vicomte Fleury; sold to Wildenstein, New York, c. 1965; sold to the Art Institute, 1967.
Exhibitions
- Paris, Palais du Domaine de Bagatelle, Exposition rétrospective de portraits de femmes sous les trios républiques, 1990.
- Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Petit Palais), David et ses élèves, 1913.
- Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Exposition rétrospective d’art français, 1926.
- Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, De David à Delacroix: La Peinture française de 1774 à 1830, 1974–1975; traveled to Detroit and New York.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Selected Works of the Eighteenth-Century French Art in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, 1976.
- Art Institute of Chicago, European Portraits, 1600–1900, in The Art Institute of Chicago, 1978.
- Paris, Musée du Louvre, and Versailles, Musée National du Château, Jacques-Louis David, 1748–1825, October 26, 1989–February 12, 1990.
- Art Institute of Chicago, New Light on Old Masters: French and British Paintings from 1700 to 1800,” 1996–1997, no cat. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Unfinished, Thoughts Left Invisible, March 7-September 5, 2016.
