Madame David
Jacques-Louis David·1813
Historical Context
David's Madame David from 1813 depicts his wife Marguerite-Charlotte Pécoul, whom he had divorced in 1794 and then remarried in 1796, their relationship surviving the upheavals of Revolution and Empire. By 1813 David was at the height of his imperial career as Napoleon's official painter, and this intimate portrait of his wife contrasts strikingly with the grand historical canvases that occupied most of his professional attention. The painting shows the restraint and psychological penetration of his mature portrait manner: a specific individual rendered with complete technical authority, the domestic setting evoking bourgeois solidity while the sitter's direct gaze claims the dignity of a woman who had shared and survived a turbulent life. The work is among the most personally felt in David's generally more public oeuvre.
Technical Analysis
David's portrait technique is refined and sympathetic, with warm flesh tones and careful modeling that soften his typically austere Neoclassical manner. The sitter is rendered with loving attention to individual features while maintaining the clarity and precision of drawing that characterizes all David's work.
Provenance
Bequeathed in 1826 by the sitter, Marguerite-Charlotte David, née Pécoul [1764-1826],[1] to her daughter, Baronne Claude-Marie Meunier, née Laure-Emilie-Félicité David [1786-1863], Calais;[2] her daughter-in-law, Baronne Jules Meunier, née Pauline Derode [1824-1903], Calais; the artist's great-granddaughter, Mme. Marius Bianchi, née Mathilde Jeanin, by 1913;[3] her daughter, Caroline-Pauline-Thérèse, Comtesse Joachim Murat [1870-1940], by 1930;[4] her sister, Renée, vicomtesse de Fleury [1869-1948]; (Pierre Cailleux, Paris), 1948-1953.[5] Jointly owned from 1953 by (Otto Wertheimer [Galerie les Tourettes], Paris) and (M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York);[6] sold 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[7] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] In a chronological list of his works which David drew up in about 1815 ("Liste B"), _Madame David_ figures in next-to-last place as "Le portrait de Me David mon épouse" (Schnapper, Antoine, et al., _Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825_, exh. cat. Louvre and Versailles, Paris, 1989: 20). [2] Mme David's last will, dated 6 March 1826 (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier Central, CVIII, 1013; Wildenstein, Daniel, and Guy Wildenstein, _Documents complémentaires au catalogue de l'oeuvre de Louis David_, Paris, 1973: 239, no. 2045), and the posthumous inventory of her possessions, dated 27 June 1826 (CVIII, 1014; Wildenstein and Wildenstein 1973: 247, no. 2071; Schnapper et al. 1989: 636), both mention this portrait and indicate that it had been bequeathed to Baronne Emilie Meunier, her daughter. [3] _David et ses elèves_, Petit Palais, Paris, 1913: no. 56. [4] Richard Cantinelli, _Jacques-Louis David_, Paris, 1930: 113, no. 132. [5] The painting was lent by Cailleux to the 1952-1953 exhibition _Meisterwerke de französichen Malerei von Poussin bis Ingres_, shown at the Kunsthalle, Hamberg, and the Alter Pinakothek, Munich. [6] M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Stock book no. 10, p. 115, no. A5477, and Sales book no. 17, both as _Portrait of Mme David_ (copies in NGA curatorial files). [7] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1314.
