Portrait of the Marquis and Marquise de Miramon and Their Children

In 1860 René de Cassagne de Beaufort, marquis de Miramon, married Thérèse Feuillant, a rich heiress from a bourgeois family. Five years later he commissioned this portrait from James Tissot. They pose on the terrace of their château at Paulhac, in the Auvergne, in autumn. The marquise holds up their baby daughter Geneviève in a white bonnet, the marquis sits on the parapet in pale grey with a riding crop, and their son Léon perches on a green chair. A black dog lies in front of them, and a cut pear waits on a plate on the wall. Tissot showed the picture in 1866 at the Cercle de l'Union Artistique, a fashionable Paris club, and it helped bring him wealthy sitters. Then it stayed with the Miramons for 140 years, until the Musée d'Orsay bought it in 2006.