Portrait of the Maistre Sisters

1796

Antoine-Jean Gros (French, 1771–1835)

In this captivating double portrait, the fashionable Maistre sisters appear in complementary flowing muslin gowns and delicate gold jewelry. Ninette, in black, wraps her arm delicately yet protectively around her sister Suzette’s waist as both look out toward the viewer. French painter Antoine-Jean Gros created the visual sensation of a gentle breeze by animating the sitters’ gauze-like draperies and chestnut curls. Dense foliage, at times blending in with the curls, frames the pair and opens onto a gleaming landscape background.

Status: On View, Gallery 219
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Baron Antoine Jean Gros
Title: Portrait of the Maistre Sisters
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1796
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right, in the wet paint with the butt end of the brush: a Génes 1796
Dimensions: 43.2 × 31.2 cm (17 × 12 1/4 in.); Framed: 57.2 × 44.5 cm (22 1/2 × 17 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1990.110
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/76212/manifest.json

“La Chronique des arts,” Gazette de Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 117 (1991), suppl. to no. 1466, p. 56, no. 242 (ill.).
Larry J. Feinberg in Malcolm Warner and Susan Wise, French and British paintings from 1600 to 1800 in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection, Chicago, 1996, pp. 79–80, ill.

David Maistre, father of the sitters, Genoa, until 1810 [this and the following provenance based on information provided by François Delestre in a letter of November 21, 1989, to Douglas Druick, in curatorial files]; at his death to Mlle Aubry, cousin of the sitters, Paris, 1810–17. M. Legoux (died 1847); Dijon; at his death to Emil Vincens (died 1850), husband of Rosine, another of the Maistre sisters; at Vincens’s death to Pauline Frat (died 1863), the only surviving sister of the Maistre family; at her death to the Legoux family, Paris. Portalès family, Paris. François Delestre, Paris; sold to Art Institute, 1990.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.