Portrait of Mademoiselle Marie-Anne Adelaide Le Normand
1793
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1793
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A woman in a dark dress sits at a table, her hand resting on an open book. A small dog curls up beside her, and a crystal ball glows faintly in the dim light. This is Mademoiselle Le Normand, Paris’s most famous fortune-teller during the French Revolution. People from all classes—even nobles—risked arrest to hear her predictions. The painting shows her calm and confident, as if she already knows the future. If you like this quiet power, look up *chiaroscuro*—the way light and shadow shape a face.
