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Portrait of the Marquise d'Aguirandes
Also known as: Comtesse d'Aiguirande de Pouligny; La Marquis d'Aiguirandes; Portrait of la Marquis d'Aguirandes
About the Artwork
Like many French portraitists active during the ancien régime, François-Hubert Drouais was skilled at veiling the physical imperfections of his subjects. This portrait certainly has this quality: the face has been idealized, smoothed, and perfected, but the focus of the painting is less on the Marquise and more on her elegant gown, which is a particularly fine rendering of eighteenth-century printed cloth, with the brilliant gold and white fabric strewn with meticulously detailed flowers and lace.
Inscriptions
Signed upper left: "Drouais fecit 1759"
Provenance
M. de Callieux, Lyons, France, descendant of the sitter Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY 1928-1936: John L. Severance (1863-1936), Cleveland Heights, OH, purchased from CMA exhibition, upon his death, held in trust by the estate 1936-1942: Estate of John L. Severance Collection, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art. 1942-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 9-December 2, 1934). Exhibition of the John L. Severance Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 12, 1942-March 14, 1943). Style, Truth and the Portrait. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 1-November 19, 1963). Paris: Life & Luxury. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (April 26-August 7, 2011); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (September 18, 2011-January 1, 2012).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- François Hubert Drouais (French, 1727–1775)
- Date
- 1759
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 138.6 x 111.9 x 13.7 cm (54 9/16 x 44 1/16 x 5 3/8 in.); Unframed: 101 x 85.6 cm (39 3/4 x 33 11/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Bequest of John L. Severance
- Accession no.
- 1942.638
More by François Hubert Drouais in museum collections
Portrait of a Woman, Said to be Madame Charles Simon Favart (Marie Justine Benoîte Duronceray, 1727–1772)
François Hubert Drouais1757 · Painting
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009334
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