Retrato da Condessa Vilain XIIII e sua Filha Louise

In 1816 Jacques-Louis David was starting over in Brussels. He had been the painter of the Revolution and then of Napoleon, and when the emperor fell and the Bourbons returned, the old regicide chose exile rather than risk staying in France. To make a living he took portrait commissions from the city's well-to-do and from fellow exiles, and this is one of them. The sitter, the Comtesse Vilain XIIII, had herself belonged to the fallen court as a lady-in-waiting to Marie-Louise, Napoleon's second wife, and she is shown with her five-year-old daughter Louise against a plain, unfurnished wall. David rarely painted mothers and children, and here he keeps the affection between them clear-eyed, without softening it into sweetness. It was among the first pictures he painted in exile, a life in Brussels that lasted until his death nine years later.