The Portraitist

Susanne Dunlap

From Shelf: Biographical Fiction that I've Read and Loved

Only two obstacles stand in Adelaide's way of becoming the most sought-after woman portraitist in eighteenth-century Paris: a beautiful, talented rival-and one of the bloodiest revolutions in history.

Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adelaide Labille-Guiard's fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris.

With a beautiful rival who's better connected and better trained than she is, Adelaide faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. Meanwhile, her rival goes from strength to strength, becoming Marie Antoinette's official portraitist and gaining entrance to the elite Academie Royale at the same time as Adelaide.

When at last Adelaide earns her own royal appointment and receives a massive commission from a member of the royal family, the timing couldn't be worse: it's 1789, and with the fall of the Bastille her world is turned upside down by political chaos and revolution. With danger around every corner in her beloved Paris, she must find a way adjust to the new order, carving out a life and a career all over again-and stay alive in the process.