Portrait of Madame Roland
In addition to hosting a salon that was an important meeting place for revolutionary politicians in Paris, Madame Roland played a powerful role behind the scenes by writing speeches and letters for her husband, Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, who became minister of the interior in 1792. As a moderate Girondin, she opposed the violence of the more radical Jacobins and was arrested at the outset of the Terror, a period when thousands of perceived enemies of the Revolution were executed. Roland wrote her memoirs from prison before she was guillotined. During her lifetime, she sat for multiple physionotraces, a silhouette portrait technique invented by Chrétien.
Artwork Details
- Title: Portrait of Madame Roland
- Artist: Gilles Louis Chrétien (French, Versailles 1754–1811 Paris)
- Artist: After Jean Fouquet (French, active 1781–93)
- Date: 1793
- Medium: Etching and aquatint
- Dimensions: Plate: 3 × 2 9/16 in. (7.6 × 6.5 cm)
Sheet: 4 1/4 × 3 3/8 in. (10.8 × 8.6 cm) - Classifications: Prints, Ephemera
- Credit Line: Anonymous Gift, 1924
- Object Number: 24.80.29
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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