Many paintings by women artists have become mistakenly attributed to men, including this engaging image, which was once ascribed to Jacques Louis David. It is now thought to be by the portraitist Marie Denise Villers, sister of the artist Marie Victorine Lemoine, whose work hangs nearby. Although little known today, Villers was a gifted pupil of Anne Louis Girodet Trioson (1767–1824); if the attribution to Villers is correct, this painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1801. Apart from demonstrating the artist’s technical skill in trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) painting, the broken windowpane is unsettling, but inexplicable.
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