Provenance
(E. Gimpel & Wildenstein, Paris);[1] sold 1914 to Louisine Waldron Elder, later Mrs. Henry Osborne Havemeyer [1855-1929]; (her estate sale, American Art Association, New York, 10 April 1930, no. 79); Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.
[1] The picture's early history is unknown. According to Frelinghuysen, Alice Cooney, et al., _Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection_, Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1993: 322, no. 180, it was acquired by Gimpel & Wildenstein from an "unknown source in 1914" and sold by them to Mrs. Havemeyer later that year. Two different accounts of the portrait's earlier provenance, both of dubious accuracy, are contained in the Chester Dale papers in the NGA's curatorial records. According to one of them, apparently furnished by Wildenstein Inc., the portrait was first "sold by Wildenstein to Mr. Gardner, but later bought back and sold to the Havemeyers in about 1912. Miss Cassatt accompanied Mrs. Havemeyer to the Wildenstein gallery in Paris and persuaded her to buy the picture." A different version, sent to Chester Dale by the Paris dealer Etienne Bignou, informed him that "this is the pedigree of the picture by David which you bought at the Havemeyer sale, 'Sold to the French collector Sigismond Bardac of Paris by Mr. Levy. Mrs. Havemeyer bought the picture from Mr. S. Bardac for about $20,000, in 1902 through Miss Mary Cassatt and Baron Christian de Marinitch." It may be noted that a _Portrait de femme. Epoque de la Révolution_, of somewhat similar dimensions given as 100 x 80 cm in the catalogue, had appeared in an anonymous sale in 1894 (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 15 March, no. 27), when it brought the modest price of 300 francs.
Accession Number
1963.10.118
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 125.5 x 95 cm (49 7/16 x 37 3/8 in.) | framed: 148.9 x 119.4 cm (58 5/8 x 47 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Chester Dale Collection
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas
Background & Context
Background Story
Portrait of a Young Woman in White from c. 1798 is attributed to the circle of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), the leading painter of the French Neoclassical period and the virtual dictator of French artistic taste during the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. The 'circle of' attribution indicates that the painting was produced by a painter in David's immediate orbit who worked in his Neoclassical manner, and the c. 1798 date places this in the Directory period, when David's Neoclassical manner was the dominant style in French painting. The portrait of a young woman in white—probably a wedding portrait—combines the Neoclassical simplicity of David's manner with the intimate domesticity of Directory-period portraiture.
Cultural Impact
Portrait of a Young Woman in White is important in the history of French Neoclassical painting because it demonstrates how David's Neoclassical manner was adapted to the intimate domestic portraiture of the Directory period. The 'circle of' attribution shows that David's manner was not limited to his own works but was disseminated through his studio and pupils, making Neoclassicism the dominant style of French painting for an entire generation.
Why It Matters
Portrait of a Young Woman in White is Neoclassical portraiture from David's circle: a young woman in white rendered in the Neoclassical simplicity of David's manner, adapted to the intimate domestic portraiture of the Directory period. The c. 1798 portrait shows David's influence extending beyond his own work through the painters in his immediate orbit.
