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This painting is an autograph second version of the portrait of Françoise Simonnier and her daughter which is now in the collection of the Wallraf-Richarz Museum, Cologne.
Françoise Simonnier was a laundress and the mistress of Gros, with whom she had a daughter in 1827. Gros depicts her as a radiant young woman holding their child on her lap; the girl pulls gently at the bodice of her mother's dress revealing her breast. Both sitters engage the viewer directly, drawing them into this intimate moment.
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