Gérard, François

In 1789 Gérard competed for the Prix de Rome and his entry, Joseph Revealing himself to his Brethren (Angers, Mus. B.-A.), was placed second; the winner was Girodet. He did not submit in 1790, being preoccupied with his father’s illness and death—after which he returned to Italy with his mother and two younger brothers. Back in Paris by mid-1791 he became David’s assistant in the painting of the Death of Le Pelletier de Saint Fargeau (destr.) in

In portraiture Gérard was a leader from the late 1790s, rivalling David himself for Court favour and even influencing his style. Typical of the free brushwork and superb control of tone in his portraits is Mme Lecerf (1794; Paris, Louvre). At the height of his success, the brilliant characterization of his sitters, as striking as that of his English contemporary, Sir Thomas Lawrence (whom he greatly admired), began to decline through sheer pressure of work; a number of his later portraits are repetitious and uninspired. This is hardly surprising in view of the extent of his oeuvre: over thirty history paintings, more than eighty full-length portraits and innumerable half-lengths and busts. Many of the portraits are in private collections and are known only through prints or the series of 84 freely handled reductions, originally made by Gérard as a record and now at Versailles. He had hardly any pupils but, because of the demands on his time, was compelled to employ assistants, notably Charles de Steuben (1788–1856), Paulin Guérin and Marie-Eléonore Godefroid (1778–1849).

Gérard’s reputation and success were based on his work as a portrait painter. Isabey and his Daughter was widely praised for its superb naturalism, rivalled only by David’s Mme Sériziat and her Son (exh. Salon 1795; Paris, Louvre). There followed Larevellière-Lépeaux (1797; Angers, Mus. B.-A.) and Comtesse Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angély (exh. Salon 1799; Paris, Louvre), in which personal expressiveness was couched in precise definition of form and soft yet subtle colour. These portraits met with almost universal approval and led in turn to commissions from Bonaparte, his family and entourage, culminating in the official Napoleon in his Imperial Robes (Versailles, Château, incl. other versions) and Mme Récamier (Paris, Carnavalet), both completed in 1805. On the strength of these, Gérard became the most fashionable portrait painter of his day, surpassing even David. His productivity at this time was phenomenal: between 1800 and 1815 he produced approximately fifty full-length and forty bust-length portraits.

Corinna at Cape Misenum (1819; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.) was commissioned at the suggestion of Madame Récamier by Prince Augustus of Prussia in memory of Madame de Staël and shown at the Salon of 1822. Although the treatment of

Some topics in this essay:
Paris Louvre, Thomas Lawrence, Infirmerie Marie-Thérèse, Louis XVIII, Augustus Prussia, Paris Carnavalet, David Gros, Gérard François, Mus Condé, Les Amours, paris louvre, versailles château, exh salon, mus b-a, portrait painter, history paintings, psyche receiving cupid’s, priv col, influence gérard, cupid’s kiss, 1795 paris louvre, louis xviii, contemporary history pictures, receiving cupid’s kiss, angers mus b-a,