Bildnis der Madame Marie-Louise Trudaine

This portrait was never finished, and the reason is the Revolution. David began it in the early 1790s for the wealthy Trudaine family, a woman seated on a plain couch, hands folded, her hair loose and her face tense against a dark, stormy background. Then painter and patrons fell out. David threw himself into the Revolution, was elected to the Convention and voted for the king's death, while the Trudaines wanted only to keep their heads down. He set the picture aside and never took it up again. Within a couple of years, during the Terror, the Trudaine brothers who had ordered it were sent to the guillotine. Marie-Louise herself outlived them and died only later, in 1802. David left her face nearly complete but the setting in rough dark strokes, which gives her a permanently unsettled look.