Detail of Madame de Saint-Morys by Duplessis in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: Madame de Saint-Morys (Eléonore Elisabeth Angélique de Beauterne, 1742–1824)

Artist: Joseph Siffred Duplessis (French, Carpentras 1725–1802 Versailles)

Date: 1776

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 39 1/2 x 31 7/8 in. (100.3 x 81 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of James A. Aborn, 1968

Accession Number: 69.161


Applying the final stages of makeup and clothing in the presence of close friends and acquaintances—even potential suitors—was a standard part of elite sociability known as la toilette. It was frequently referenced in eighteenth-century portraiture. Duplessis skillfully depicts Madame de Saint-Morys’s plump figure next to her dressing table with a sympathetic naturalism that was praised by critics at the Salon of 1777. The sitter’s husband was a key patron of Greuze and a major collector of drawings, including sheets by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Dürer, and Rembrandt that are today in the Musée du Louvre.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436235