Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) and Marie Anne Lavoisier (Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze, 1758–1836)
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
102 1/4 x 76 5/8 in. (259.7 x 194.6 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman Gift, in honor of Everett Fahy, 1977
Accession Number
1977.10
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1788, master Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David created this monumental oil-on-canvas portrait of Antoine Laurentoisier, the pioneering French chemist often called the father of modern, and his wife, Marie Anne Pierrette Paul. Measuring over eight feet tall, the work captures the couple at the height of the Enlightenment, just one year before the French Revolutionended their world. Lavoisier, a nobleman and innovator who debunked the phlogiston theory and named oxygen and hydrogen, is depicted alongside Marie Anne, his brilliant collaborator who illustrated his experiments, translated...
About the Artist
Jacques Louis David · 1748–1825
Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), born in Paris on August 30 to a prosperous family, faced early tragedy when his father was killed in a duel around age nine. Raised by his mother's two architect uncles after his mother departed, David overcame family resistance to architecture and a facial tumor that hindered his speech and studies at the Collège des Quatre-Nations. He began training under the Roc...