A Fashionable Noblewoman Wearing a Plumed Hat

c. 1789

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Associated Names
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Artist, French, 1749 - 1803

This drawing shows a portrait of a woman from the chest up. The woman is looking at us, her body slightly turned to the left. She has fair skin with pink cheeks, dark eyebrows, round, green-gray eyes, and pink lips set in as slight smile. Her hair is light, styled in voluminous curls and topped by a large gray hat set at an angle, with blue ribbons on the left and large blue feathers on the right. She wears a blue-and-white dress with a puffy white neckline, with a bunch of flowers seemingly attached to her dress on the left in shades of pink, blue, and white, surrounded by gray leaves. The background is a soft blue color with hints of gray on the left and right. The drawing is oval shaped.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    pastel on blue laid paper mounted on canvas (on strainer/stretcher)

  • Credit Line

    New Century Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall (oval): 55 x 46 cm (21 5/8 x 18 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1999.92.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Passez 1973, no. 89

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Mme. Guiraud, by 1902(?) (Lugt undescribed). Richard Thalmann, by 1926 (Lugt undescribed).[1] Private Collection, France, until 1999; (Artemis SA Luxembourg Succursale de Geneve, Switzerland); purchased 1999 by NGA.
[1] This drawing does not appear to be among those seized by the Nazis from Thalmann, according to files at the National Archives.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1787

  • possibly Salon de l'Academie Royale, Paris, no. 116 (based on the possible identification of the sitter as the Vicomtesse de Gand).

1926

  • Femmes Peintres, Hôtel des Négociants en Objets d'Art, Paris, no. 56.

2009

  • Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500-1800. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2009, 254-255, 291, no. 111 (color).

2019

  • The Touch of Color: Pastels at the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2019 - 2020, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1902

  • Portalis, Baron Roger. "Adélaïde Labille-Guiard." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, I (1902): p. 48.

  • Portalis, Baron Roger. Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. Paris, 1902, 46.

1909

  • Macfall, Haldane. The French Pastellists of the Eighteenth Century. London, 1909: 192.

1946

  • Ratouis de Limay, Paul. Le Pastel en France au XVIIIème siècle. Paris, 1946: 106, 216.

1947

  • Ratouis de Limay, P. "Une portraitiste du XVIIIème siècle, Madame Labille-Guiard." Le Dessin 3 (1947): 106.

1968

  • Johann Georg, Prinz vol Hohenzollern. "Das Bildnis der Marquise de La Valette." Pantheon XXVI (1968): 477.

1973

  • Passez, Anne Marie. Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1749-1803: Biographie et catalogue raisonné de son oeuvre. Paris, 1973: 199, 200, no. 89, pl. LXXII (as location unknown)

2000

  • Grasselli, Margaret Morgan. "Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Marie-Josèphe Félicité de La Rochefoucauld, vicomtesse de Gand." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 23 (Spring 2000): 8.

2006

  • Jeffares, Neil. Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800. London, 2006: 271.

2009

  • Auricchio, Laura. Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution. Los Angeles, 2009: no. U.22 (as "Portrait of a Woman Identified as the Vicomtesse de Gand")

2015

  • Burns, Thea, and Phiippe Saunier. The Art of the Pastel. New York, 2015: 105.

Wikidata ID

Q64533273

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