Madame de Wailly, née Adélaïde-Flore Belleville (1765–1838)

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The sitter was the wife of Pajou's lifelong friend Charles de Wailly, a companion from student days in Rome. De Wailly, court architect to Louis XVI, had built neighboring houses for Pajou and himself, and Pajou executed busts of the architect and his wife. After her husband's death, Madame de Wailly married M. de Fourcroy, a medical doctor and chemist. The portrait of Madame de Wailly displays the sculptor's gifts to best advantage. The solidity that characterizes his work is enlivened by an equally characteristic linearity, resulting in a brilliant eighteenth-century version of a Roman matron's portrait. The sense of dignity does not suppress the spirit of humor and intelligence that radiates from Madame de Wailly's fully mature countenance. This maturity is echoed in Pajou's handling of her torso, emphasized by the clinging cloth that partly exposes her chest and ample shoulders. The sinuous, weighty curls that frame her face and cascade over her shoulders are insistently sculptural, lending harmony and equilibrium to the work.

About the author:
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially "the Met", is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from Medieval Europe.

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