Portrait of Constance Pipelet

Painted in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Désoria’s Portrait of Constance Pipelet typifies the Neoclassical style of portraiture practiced by Jacques-Louis David and his circle. The figure, placed parallel to the picture plane and silhouetted against the bright blue of the sky, evokes antique relief sculpture. Her white cotton dress was the fashionable attire of middle- and upper-class women in the 1790s, its antique associations reflecting Neoclassical ideals and its simplicity echoing the egalitarian spirit of the new French Republic. Constance Pipelet, later Constance de Salm-Dyck, was a noted poet, librettist, and feminist with a salon that attracted the literary and artistic notables of Paris.