As Duas Irmãs

Theodore Chasseriau was just 23 when he showed this double portrait at the Paris Salon of 1843. The two women are his own sisters, Adele on the left and Aline on the right, standing close in matching dark dresses and shawls, almost the same height, almost the same face. That deliberate sameness unsettled some critics, who found two near-identical figures posed side by side an odd choice. Chasseriau had trained under the strict draughtsman Ingres, then fallen under the spell of Delacroix's colour, and you can feel both pulls here, in the sharp drawing and the warm reds. He died young, at 37, and by then this was counted among his finest works. The sisters hold themselves upright and still, hands quietly crossed, looking straight out at their brother.