Bildnis der Madame de Verninac

David painted Henriette de Verninac in 1799, in the years after the Terror when France was governed by the Directory and fashionable women dressed in white gowns modelled on ancient statues. She sits very upright in that antique manner, a golden shawl across her lap, the whole picture cool and severe in David's neoclassical style. Henriette was the daughter of a former foreign minister and had married a diplomat, Raymond de Verninac, the year before. There is a quiet family footnote here. Her little brother, an infant when this was painted, was Eugene Delacroix, who would grow up to lead the Romantic painters against the very restraint on show in his sister's portrait. David set his signature along the base of her chair.