Today marks the quasi-bicentenary of the almost-completion of one of history’s great paintings. On September 28, 1800, France’s most celebrated painter, Jacques-Louis David, wrote to France’s most famous society beauty, Juliette Recamier, explaining that although he was having difficulty finishing his portrait of her he remained confident that the end result would “delight the whole world”. Madame Recamier, who had never been noted for her patience, was not at all pleased by this news. She became still less so when she went to the artist’s studio to check on his progress. David’s compelling but chilly depiction of her as a modern vestal virgin was not to her taste. She promptly commissioned a second portrait of herself from one of the artist’s pupils, the accomplished and amenable Baron Francois Gerard. For his part, David revenged himself on an ungrateful sitter by refusing either to finish or to release the picture which had failed to live up to her expectations. When pressed he responded with the following, superb reproof: “Madame, ladies have their caprices; so do painters. Allow me to satisfy mine; I shall keep your portrait in its present state.” The picture remained in his studio until the year of his death, 1826, when it was purchased by the state. It has been in the Louvre ever since.
 
What was it about David’s picture that so offended Juliette Recamier? According to the painter’s contemporary and biographer Etienne Delecluze, it was all to do with her feet. Madame Recamier, Delecluze suggested, had something of a complex about them. David had offended her by depicting them unshod. Joseph Turquan, the most floridly entertaining of Madame Recamier’s many biographers, added fuel to the fire of this particular speculation. “Her feet lacked fineness of proportion,” he wrote damningly. “They had been cast in a...

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