Porträt der Juliette de Villeneuve

By 1824 the man who painted this had lost his country. Jacques-Louis David had voted to execute Louis the Sixteenth, then served as Napoleon's court painter, and when the monarchy returned he chose exile in Brussels rather than beg a pardon. That is where he made this portrait, at 75, of a woman of 22. Juliette de Villeneuve came from the Clary family, whose daughters had married remarkably well, one becoming queen of Sweden and another queen of Spain. David gives her a wide straw hat and a plain landscape behind, none of the imperial pomp he once specialized in. He signed it simply Louis David, on the chair by her side.