DROUAIS, François-Hubert
(b. 1727, Paris, d. 1775, Paris)

Family Portrait

1756
Oil on canvas, 244 x 195 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

The portrait depicts the unidentified members of a family decked out in finery that denotes their wealth, rank, and relatively high social status: a mother and father in their early thirties and their six- or seven-year-old daughter. The theme of a mother and daughter performing the rituals of the morning toilette was fairly common in eighteen-century French portraiture. Jean-Marc Nattier exploited if in his Madame Marsollier and her Daughter, which was sent to the Salon of 1750 and surely had an impact on Drouais. The painter goes a step further than his predecessor by introducing the father into the otherwise feminine environment.

It has been claimed more than once that Drouais borrowed features of this composition from the Milliner, painted by one of his masters, François Boucher for a member of the Swedish royal family.