Portrait of Madame Ravaisson
Medium
Graphite on white wove paper darkened to buff
Dimensions
13 1/8 x 10 in. (35.1 x 26.9 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.582
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,odore Chassériau *Portrait of Madame Rava* (1846) offers an intimate glimpse into mid-19th-century French portraiture. Crafted when Chassériau was 27, this delicate drawing captures the sitter's refined features with remarkable sensitivity. Rendered in graphite on white wove paper—now softened to a warm buff tone through age—the work measures 13 1/8 x 10 inches, showcasing the artist's early mastery during his formative years in Paris. Chassériau, a prodigy bridging Neoclassicism and Romanticism under the influence of Ingres an...
About the Artist
Théodore Chassériau · 1819–1856
Théodore Chassériau was born on September 20, 1819, in El Limón, Samaná, in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo — present-day Dominican Republic — to a French father and a Creole mother. The family relocated to Paris in 1820, and the young Chassériau's exceptional talent was evident almost immediately. At just eleven years old, in 1830, he was accepted into the prestigious studio of Jean-Auguste-D...