Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) was the foremost painter of the French Revolution and France's first empire, relying on drawings to create his monumental Neo-classical masterpieces. An exhibition of 84 of these drawings is opening today at New York’s Met, including some “new discoveries”, says to curator Perrin Stein.

The Lavoisiers, posing for French painter Jacques-Louis David's workshop, celebrates science alongside a Virgin by Goswin Van der Weyden.

The Director of the Fesch Palace Museum, curator of Ajaccio’s museums and authority on 16th-century Italian painting has written a fascinating book on Napoleon’s tastes, from Jacques-Louis David to the Trianon and the secrets of the Empire style.

The Bernard d'Agesci museum preempted, for €16,500 at R&C Auction House, the Portrait of François de Fontanges of 1788. The prelate was Marie-Antoinette's confessor. Bernard d'Agesci, a pupil of Restout and Lagrenée, and a friend of painter Jacques-Louis David. A portrait by Danloux also fetched €100,000.

Jacques-Louis David's famous painting, painted in 1788, has undergone an extensive restoration campaign that began in 2019. This has led to the discovery that the scientific instruments are a later addition by the artist's hand and that Madame Lavoisier was wearing a large hat.

Known as “La Belle Juliette”, Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adelaïde Récamier (1777-1849) boasted not just beauty, but great literary and artistic talent, and political spirit. Her salon was a cornerstone of intellectual circles from the start of the French Consulate right through until the last days of the July Monarchy.

Featuring Jacques Bircklé's stamp, this Louis XVI period secretary is inlaid with an orangery in perspective.

Jacques-Laurent Agasse, a brilliant animal painter, was born in Geneva but made a career in England. This intimate scene reveals another side of his immense talent.

The theme of a Man with a Guitar, to which he returned several times in his early years in Paris, inspired the Lithuanian-born artist to create a Cubist sculpture. A proof now up for auction is an ideal moment to look back at this artist's pioneering work.

This oil on panel by Jean-Jacques Lagrenée (1739-1821), depicting an 'Ancient Sacrifice', is thought to have come from the sale that followed the death of Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, which took place in Paris from April 6 to 8,1777.