Portrait of Jean-Thomas Thibault
  • François-Pascal-Simon Gérard (called Baron Gérard)
  • Rome 1770 - 1837 Paris
  • Portrait of Jean-Thomas Thibault, 1809
  • Black and brown chalk, on blue-green paper, partly smeared and heightened with white
  • 270 × 210 mm
Provenance:
Hector Lefuel, Paris 1810 - 1880
(Architecte en chef du nouveau Louvre 1854),
Olivier Lefuel, Paris

Highly esteemed by his teacher, Jacques-Louis David, Gérard rose to become one of the leading portraitists of his age, working for the Bonaparte family and as court painter to Louis XVIII. Gérard prepared small drawn reproductions from his portraits, which he preserved for his own collection.

Jean-Thomas Thibault (Moutier-en-Der 1757-1826 Paris) was highly regarded both as an architect and as a landscape painter. Under Napoleon he was responsible for the châteaux at Malmaison and Neuilly, as well as the Palais d’Elysée. He became a member of the Institut de France and professor of perspective at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

His posthumously published book on that subject opened with this portrait, captioned, “After a study by his friend Gérard” (Fig.1).