Marie Rinteau, called Mademoiselle de Verrières

François Hubert Drouais

1761 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

Marie Rinteau is best remembered today as the great-grandmother of the writer George Sand, though she and her sister Geneviève enjoyed a brief moment of success on the French stage (note the sheet music she holds) and long careers as cultured courtesans, known as les demoiselles de Verrières. The modish portraitist Drouais exhibited this painting showing Rinteau at her dressing table in the Salon of 1761. Originally, however, Rinteau’s hair did not rise to such beribboned heights: in the mid-1770s, Drouais or another painter altered Rinteau’s wig to keep this portrait up with the latest changes in fashion.

Artist

François Hubert Drouais

Date

1761

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

The Jules Bache Collection, 1949