Madame Clotilde playing the guitar

Madame Clotilde, daughter of the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand and granddaughter of Louis XV, plays the guitar in this 1775 portrait at the Palace of Versailles. Clotilde, known for her extreme corpulence, would later marry the future King of Sardinia. Musical accomplishment was an expected part of a princess"s education, and this portrait records Clotilde in the act of performing, combining portraiture with the fashionable theme of music-making. Drouais was among the most successful portraitists of pre-Revolutionary France, working in the tradition of his father Hubert Drouais and studying under Carle van Loo, Natoire, and Boucher before establishing himself at court.

The guitar provides a naturalistic prop that adds narrative interest and relaxes the formal conventions of royal portraiture. Drouais renders the instrument with precision, its wooden surface and strings carefully observed. The princess"s features are treated with the diplomatic idealization that court portraiture demanded, while the informal musical activity suggests a more relaxed, domestic aspect of royal life. The palette is characteristic of Drouais"s late work.