Alexandre Roslin: Un Portraitiste Pour l’Europe (2008)

Alexandre Roslin has faded from the pages of an art history that is perhaps too nationalistic. A portraitist of Enlightenment society and of sovereigns, this artist of European destiny was quickly recognised in his own time by François Boucher, honoured by King Gustav III of Sweden, summoned to the court of Catherine II of Russia, and invited to Warsaw and Vienna.

Everywhere, the master was celebrated for his magnificent portraiture. Mastering perfectly the play of light upon fabrics and rendering the delicacy of lace with incomparable skill, he established his reputation through his virtuosity in translating the appearance and texture of textiles into paint.

His work demonstrates today that he was also able to penetrate the soul of his sitters, both in his early Parisian portraits, imbued with a Rococo style of light and fresh tonalities, and in the paintings of his mature period, whose melancholy cannot leave one unmoved.

A remarkable witness to his time, Alexandre Roslin allows us here to relive the final glimmers of a society that, like him, was extinguished with the French Revolution.