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Your galleryMadame François Buron
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Notice her hand pressed to her forehead and the book open in her other hand, as if you had just interrupted her.
When David’s father died in 1757, the boy went to live with his uncle, the architect François Buron, and his aunt, Marie-Josèphe Fromont. She supported his wish to become a painter, while her husband wanted him to study architecture. David signed and dated this warm portrait of her in 1769, when he was about twenty, and shows her glancing up from her reading.
Oil on canvas · 66.3 × 55.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Neoclassicism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Madame François Buron
- Artist
- Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
- Date
- 1769
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 66.3 × 55.5 cm (26 1/8 × 21 7/8 in.); Framed: 92.4 × 81.6 × 10.2 cm (36 3/8 × 32 1/8 × 4 in.)
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Mrs. Albert J. Beveridge in memory of her mother, Abby Louise Spencer (Mrs. Augustus Eddy).
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.