Madame François Buron

This is one of the first portraits David ever painted, made in 1769 when he was about 20 and still a student at the royal Academy in Paris. The sitter is family. After his father was killed in a duel, the boy was taken in by relatives, and this is his aunt, Madame Buron, who had backed his wish to become a painter when her husband wanted him steered into architecture instead. He paints her looking up from a book, one hand to her brow, in a striped dress touched with bows against a dark ground. There is none of the marble grandeur of the history paintings that would later make him famous. He simply watches her closely, the aunt who had argued his case, as she glances up to meet the viewer.