Portrait of the Maistre Sisters

Baron Antoine Jean Gros · 1796

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

43.2 × 31.2 cm (17 × 12 1/4 in.); Framed: 57.2 × 44.5 cm (22 1/2 × 17 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

Painted with quiet intimacy, this double portrait captures two young sisters in a tender moment that feels more like a glimpse than a posed composition. Antoine Jean Gros completed this work in 1796 while living in Genoa, having fled Revolutionary France — a period of personal uncertainty that may well have sharpened his sensitivity to human connection. A student of Jacques-Louis David, Gros brought his master's draughtsmanship to bear here while pushing toward something warmer: the soft modelling of the faces, the delicate handling of fabric, and the easy closeness between the two figures signal the Romantic instincts that would define his later career. The painting predates his legendary encounter with Napoleon — also in Genoa that same year, facilitated by Joséphine de Beauharnais — after which Gros would become one of the defining painters of the Napoleonic era. That this intimate, unhurried portrait comes from the same months as that fateful meeting gives it an unusual biographical weight. The hand-painted oil reproduction renders every element of the original with care — the luminous skin tones, the subtle gradations of shadow, the quiet rapport between the sisters — bringing a masterwork from the Art Institute of Chicago's collection into your own space.