Portrait of Juliette de Villeneuve
Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) · 1824
A young woman of twenty-two stands beside a tall gilded harp in a plainly furnished room, one hand resting on the strings. She wears a black velvet dress with short puffed sleeves and a long shawl striped in blue, white and gold, with fringes, draped over her arm; her dark hair is dressed in high curls. At the right, a music stand holds an open score and a straw bonnet with yellow ribbons and flowers hangs on a stand. She looks out with a composed, slightly reserved smile. David signed and dated the picture in Brussels in 1824, in capital letters, at the sitter's waist.
Juliette de Villeneuve belonged by her mother, Honorine Clary, to the family of Désirée Clary, wife of Bernadotte and queen of Sweden, and she married Joachim Clary. David was seventy-six and living in exile in Brussels; this is one of the last portraits he painted, and the still life of harp, music and bonnet is as carefully finished as the face. The canvas stayed in the Clary and Beauverger families for generations until 1997, when the Société des Amis du Louvre bought it and gave it to the museum for the society's centenary.
Did You Know? David signed the picture on the belt of her dress, in Brussels, at the age of seventy-six.
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