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Description: signed lower left: M^te/ gerard

oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 24 3/8 by 20 1/8 in.; 62 by 51cm

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Provenance: THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

Possibly Aubry;
His sale, Paris, Paillet, March 16, 1840, lot 41 (Jeune Femme lisant à la lueur d'une lampe);
Cardinal Fesch, Rome;
His deceased sale, Rome, April 17, 1843, lot 101;
F. M. de Lyon;
His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, December 5, 1908, lot 27;
Thomas Todd, New York.

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Published: S. Wells-Robertson, Marguerite Gérard 1761-1837, New York University PH.d diss.; New York 1978, vol. I, pp. 109 and 157, vol. II, p. 821, cat. no. 54, reproduced (titled L'Etude).

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Notes: The present painting has been dated by Sally Wells Robertson (see Literature below) to circa 1795-1800.

Gerard specialized in domestic genre scenes, often depicting an idealized vision of the lives of bourgeois and upper class women. Usually depicted in intimate settings, her subjects enjoy lives of leisure with their families or engage in elegant pastimes. Her meticulous style derived from her study of the works of Dutch 17th Century masters such as Gabriel Metsu and Caspar Netscher.

The present painting was once in the renowned collection of Cardinal Joseph Fesch in Rome (see Provenance), who owned eleven works by Gérard. He amassed one of the largest and comprehensive art collections of the early 19th century which, at the time of his death in 1839, comprised nearly 16,000 works.