DUVIVIER, Jan Bernard
(b. 1762, Bruges, d. 1837, Paris)

Portrait of the Villers Family

1790
Oil on canvas, 112 x 145 cm
Groeninge Museum, Bruges

This highly symbolic family portrait is conceived almost in a fashion of a memorial. On the eve of the reign of terror that followed the French Revolution, this group, portrayed in the manner of a Dutch master, has the character of a 'memento mori' for a doomed aristocracy.