Madame Pasteur, née Madeleine Alexandre ( 1773-1841)

This 1800 portrait of Madame Pasteur at the Louvre depicts the mother of the future scientist Louis Pasteur during the Napoleonic era. Gros’s portraits of bourgeois French women from this period document the social world beyond the military elite that dominated his most famous works. Gros's richly colored oil technique bridged David's classical severity—in which he had been trained—with the Romantic colorism that Delacroix would develop in his wake, using warm, vibrant flesh tones and...

The female portrait shows Gros’s warm, sympathetic approach to civilian subjects. Careful rendering of costume and features creates an elegant image within the conventions of early 19th-century French portraiture.