Philippe-Laurent de Joubert

David began this portrait around 1790, with the Revolution already underway, and never finished it. The sitter, Philippe-Laurent de Joubert, was treasurer to the Estates of Languedoc, a wealthy administrator of the old order in a country that was fast dismantling it. He was also a collector and a patron, and he had taken an interest in a promising young painter from Montpellier, François-Xavier Fabre, one of David's own students. Joubert died in 1792, which is likely why the canvas was left as it stands, the face carefully brought up while parts around it remain bare. Decades later Fabre gave his own collection to his home city, and it became the museum where this unfinished portrait of his early protector now hangs.