The Fortune Teller (La Bonne Aventure)

The Fortune Teller, painted in Brussels in 1824 during David's exile from Restoration France, represents his late turn toward lighthearted genre and mythological subjects remote from the heroic political paintings of his revolutionary and Napoleonic career. The whimsical subject — a young woman having her fortune told, a theme without historical or political weight — marked a dramatic departure for the painter of the Death of Marat and the Coronation of Napoleon. The reasons for this shift were complex: exile from France meant a different clientele with different tastes, and the new political order that had banished him made his old heroic subjects politically impossible. The Brussels period produced a series of works that surprised and sometimes dismayed those who admired his earlier severity, but they reveal a David capable of tenderness and playfulness when freed from public obligation. The painting is now held at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which preserves this late work as evidence of the range that David's genius encompassed.

The genre subject allows David to indulge in a softer, more sensuous palette than his history paintings typically employ. The figure's costume and setting evoke a generalized classical world, painted with the smooth finish and clear color that characterize David's Brussels period.