Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his Wife
The Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his Wife (French: Portrait d'Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier et de sa femme) is a double portrait of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier and his wife and collaborator Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, commissioned from the French painter Jacques-Louis David in 1788 by Marie-Anne (who had been taught drawing by David). It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. History David was paid 7,000 livres for the portrait on 16 December 1788. It was not permitted to be put on public display at the Paris Salon for fear that an image of Lavoisier – a figure connected to the royal court and the Ancien Régime – might provoke anti-aristocratic aggression from viewers. In 1836, the painting was left by Marie-Anne to her great-niece, and it remained in the collection of the comtesse de Chazelles and her descendants until 1924, when it was bought by John Davison Rockefeller. Rockefeller gave it to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1927, and it was acquired from this institution by the Metropolitan Museum in 1977. Description The work is painted in oils on a canvas of 259.7 × 194.6 cm. It shows the couple in Lavoisier's office, with