Lecture and Conversation, Rediscovering François Gérard

Kathryn Calley Galitz with Ian McClure Thursday, November 12, 2020, 4:00 pm François Gérard’s career as a portrait painter was launched with the acclaim that greeted his portrait of Alexandrine Émilie Brongniart at the Paris Salon in 1795. Though the painting was long believed to be lost, two versions have recently come to light: a bust-length portrait now in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery and a three-quarter version in a private collection. Kathryn Calley Galitz, art historian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, discusses the evolution of Émilie’s portrait and its significance in Gérard’s oeuvre and, more broadly, in the flourishing of the genre of portraiture in early 19th-century France. The talk is followed by a conversation with Ian McClure, the Susan Morse Hilles Chief Conservator, Yale University Art Gallery. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.