1780-1789

1788 – Jacques Louis David, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and Marie-Anne Lavoisier

1780-1789, 18th century, artwork analysis

Jacques-Louis David painted famed scientist, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, and his wife, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, in 1788. This dual portrait was commissioned by Lavoisier and is executed in the neoclassical naturalism for which David is best known. Both are dressed in the latest fashions, embracing simplicity (in Paulze’s case) and somber restraint (in Lavoisier’s).

1783 – Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette in a Chemise Dress

1780-1789, 18th century, artwork analysis

Vigée Le Brun’s infamous portrait of Marie Antoinette embodies the tension between fashion and politics in 18th-century France.

1787-9 – Alexandre-August Robineau, The Fencing-Match between the Chevalier de Saint-George and the Chevalier d’Eon

1780-1789, 18th century, artwork analysis, BIPOC, LGBTQ+

This 18th-century painting commemorates an historic fencing match between two French knights: one an illegitimate Black nobleman and the other a gender nonconforming spy.

1785 – Marie-Victoire Lemoine, Portrait of a Youth in an Embroidered Vest

1780-1789, 18th century, artwork analysis, BIPOC

The young man in this portrait, dressed in formal French aristocratic style, represents the final flourish (or last gasp?) of the ancien régime in the last years before the French Revolution.

1783 – Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette with a Rose

1780-1789, 18th century, artwork analysis

Court painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun depicts the extremely fashionable Queen Marie Antoinette wearing late 18th-century French aristocratic costume (a robe à la française).