Woman in Front of a Fireplace
1806
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1806
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A woman in a high-waisted dress stands by a fireplace, holding a fan. Tiny pencil lines form a grid over her face and body. This isn’t the final portrait—it’s the sketch the artist showed the family first. The grid let him copy the drawing onto a bigger canvas later. In the real painting, she’s outside in a cave, not by the fire, because rich women then were often shown in nature. Look up more portraits from France, early 19th century to see how other artists painted women at the time.
