The Ninth Month

The Ninth Month (1790) is a work by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845) — the most acute observer of Parisian bourgeois society across the Revolutionary, Imperial, and Restoration periods. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays miniaturist precision in oil, meticulous rendering of fashionable dress and domestic interiors, genre scenes crowded with sharply observed social types. From Lille, he settled in Paris by 1785 and survived the Revolution despite denunciation (he quickly produced a revolutionary allegory to clear himself).

Executed with trompe-l'oeil effects and attention to smooth finish, the work reveals Louis-Léopold Boilly's characteristic approach to composition and surface. The treatment of light and the careful modulation of color create visual richness within a unified pictorial scheme.