Portrait of the artist's son, Antoine-Louis Regnault (1788-1856)

Regnault's 1810 portrait of his son Antoine-Louis — born 1788, making him about twenty-two at the time of the portrait — is another example of the painter turning his professional skills to private family documentation. Antoine-Louis would go on to have his own career, and this Empire-period portrait captures him at the cusp of adulthood during the years when French society was fully organised around the Napoleonic imperial system. The smooth academic finish and composed bearing of the portrait reflect both Regnault's consistent Neoclassical style and the codes of bourgeois masculine self-presentation in the Empire period. Young men of this class and generation were expected to project composure and ambition rather than Romantic emotional display.

The young man's portrait employs the compositional vocabulary of masculine portraiture in the Empire period: three-quarter length or bust, direct gaze, controlled expression, formal dress. Regnault's smooth modelling of the face communicates individual likeness within the idealising finish that was his professional standard.