This sheet is a rare, spectacular example of the draftsmanship of Labille-Guiard, one of the most successful women artists in eighteenth-century France. Trained by the painter François André Vincent, whom she would later marry, Labille-Guiard attracted an illustrious clientele with her direct, sensitive portraits in miniature, pastel, and oil. She was one of the few women of her time admitted to the Académie Royale. Combining red, black, and white chalk in a vigorous technique reminiscent of that of her husband, she depicts here her devoted student Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818). Capet lived in the couple's household, staying on after Labille-Guiard's death in 1803 to care for Vincent until his death in 1816, two years before her own.
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Medium:Red, black, and white chalk on toned laid paper
Dimensions:Sheet: 20 1/2 x 18 7/8 in. (52 x 48 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Gift of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2008
Accession Number:2008.538.1
Signature: Signed in black chalk at lower right, Labille f. Guiard.
Inscription: Inscribed in pen and brown ink at lower left: Labille / fme Guiard / 1789.
Presumably in the studio of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (French)until her death, 1803; ?her husband, François André Vincent (French); collection of M. D[espris], Paris; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 18-19, 1921, lot 31; Mme Conti(per Passez); Edouard Pape; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 16, 1943, lot 6; Private Collection, France; Emmanuel Moatti, Paris, 1994; sold to Wrightsman; Mrs. Charles Wrightsman (American), New York, from 1994
Wildenstein, New York. "The Winds of Revolution," November 14, 1989–December 28, 1989.
Emmanuel Moatti and Jack Kilgore & Co., Inc., New York. "Old Master Drawings," May 6, 1994–May 21, 1994.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," July 12–October 3, 2010.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paper Chase: Two Decades of Collecting Drawings and Prints," December 9, 2014–March 16, 2015.
Passez 105
Anne-Marie Passez Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1749–1803: Biographie et catalogue raisonné de son oeuvre. Arts et Métiers Graphiques, Paris, 1973, p. 222, no. 105 (as "Portrait de Femme," present location unknown, citation of M. D[espris] sale), and p. 296, no. 178 (as "Portrait de Jeune Femme," among the "Oeuvres incertaines passées en ventes publiques," citation of Pape sale).
Joseph Baillio The Winds of Revolution. Exh. cat., Wildenstein, New York, November 14-December 28, 1989. New York, 1989, cat. no. 31, ill.
Old Master Drawings. Exh. cat., Emmanuel Moatti and Jack Kilgore & Co., Inc., New York, May 6-21, 1994. New York, 1994, cat. no. 28.
Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Jean-Francois Méjanès, William W. Robinson Mastery and Elegance, Two Centuries of French Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz. Exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums, and other cities. edited by Alvin L. Clark Jr., Cambridge, MA, 1999, p. 326, fig. 1.
Everett Fahy, Pierre Rosenberg, Elizabeth E. Barker, George R. Goldner et al. The Wrightsman Pictures. New York and New Haven, 2005, cat. no. 72, ill.
Laura Auricchio Adélaide Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution. Los Angeles, 2009, pp. 14-15, ill. fig. 7.
Louis-Antoine Prat Le Dessin Français au XVIIIe siècle. Paris, 2017, fig. no. 424, 250-51, ill.
Magnus Olausson, Martin Olin, Daniel Prytz "Four 18th-Century French Draughtsmen" Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum. 26, Stockholm, 2019, fig. no. 6, p. 34.
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
