Portrait of a Young Woman

Henri Regnault · 1863

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

92.1 × 73 cm (36 1/4 × 28 3/4 in.); Framed: 105.5 × 86.7 × 7.7 cm (41 1/2 × 34 1/8 × 3 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Henri Regnault's *Portrait of a Young Woman* is a quietly arresting work — the subject's gaze holding a composed intelligence that feels entirely modern despite being painted in 1863. Regnault was just twenty years old when he produced this portrait, already demonstrating the confident draftsmanship and sensitivity to light that would later earn him the Prix de Rome in 1866. Trained under Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts, he absorbed the academic tradition while pushing toward a freer, more expressive touch — visible here in the way the skin is rendered with warmth rather than porcelain precision. The painting favours psychological presence over idealization, a quality that sets it apart from much portraiture of the period. Regnault's career was cut tragically short when he was killed during the Siege of Paris in 1871 at twenty-seven, leaving behind a small but consistently compelling body of work. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this portrait as part of its permanent collection. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is executed on linen canvas using traditional pigments, preserving the tonal depth and brushwork of the original — giving you a work that lives on the wall rather than behind glass.