Young Woman at a Table Holding a Cup

When François-André Vincent made this endearing portrait of Marie-Gabrielle Capet in 1790, he had just been appointed professor at the Royal Academy and curator of the king’s drawings collection. Capet came from Lyons to Paris to study with Vincent’s life-long companion, the portraitist and miniaturist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. Capet became her favorite pupil, then their housemate and model, and ultimately their caretaker in old age. The artist’s use of three chalks and deliberate grace reflects the preceding era of the Rococo more than the severity of the Neoclassical, revolutionary era.