c. 1810
Portrait of a Young Man
After the French Revolution, Louis-Leopold Boilly supported himself by painting thousands of small, finely finished portraits like this one. A canny businessman, he placed advertisements in newspapers announcing that he could paint an affordably priced portrait in just two hours. Most of the identities of Boilly’s sitters are unknown, but the clothes of this bright-eyed young man tell us that he is a prosperous member of the middle class.
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