Portrait of Madame Roland

Jean Fouquet|Gilles Louis Chrétien

1793 · Etching and aquatint · Drawings and Prints

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.

Artist

Jean Fouquet|Gilles Louis Chrétien

Date

1793

Medium

Etching and aquatint

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Anonymous Gift, 1924