Portrait of a Young Lady
c. 1820
Medium
Lithograph in brown on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 13.3 × 9.3 cm (5 1/4 × 3 11/16 in.); Sheet: 26.2 × 17.2 cm (10 3/8 × 6 13/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
39570
Art Historical Context
Dominique-Vivant Denon *Portrait of a Young Lady (c. 1820) is a charming lithograph rendered in soft brown ink on cream wove paper capturing the delicate features of its unnamed subject with intimate elegance. Measuring just 13.3 × 9.3 cm, the image invites close viewing, its modest sheet size (26.2 × 17.2 cm) typical of early print experiments housed today in the Art Institute of’s Prints and Drawings Department. Denon (1747–1825), a French polymath who served as Napoleon’s expedition artist in Egypt and later director of the Louvre, was among the pioneers of lithography in France. Invented ...
About the Artist
Dominique-Vivant Denon · 1747–1825
Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747–1825) was a French artist, diplomat, archaeologist, and museum administrator who became the first director of the Musée du Louvre — a role that earned him the title of "the father of all museums." Born Baron Vivant de Non in Chalon-sur-Saône, Burgundy, he was educated for a career in diplomacy and served under Louis XV and Louis XVI as a gentleman of the court and as a...