Portrait of Madame Récamier

David began this in the spring of 1800, with Napoleon newly in power and David the most sought-after painter in France. His sitter, Juliette Récamier, was 23 and the most talked-about hostess in Paris, the wife of a rich banker whose salon everyone wanted into. He posed her barefoot on a Roman-style couch, in a plain white dress, hair cropped short in the antique fashion, the whole look scrubbed of old-regime frills. Then the sittings went wrong. Récamier lost patience and quietly hired David's own pupil to paint her as well. David, insulted, put his brushes down and never finished. He kept the canvas in his studio for years and reportedly told her that artists have their whims too, and his was to keep this one. That is why the background stays bare and the lamp at her feet is barely blocked in.