A landmark of European portraiture that asserts a modern, scientifically minded couple in fashionable but simple dress, this painting was excluded from the Salon of 1789 for fears it would inflame revolutionary zeal. Technical analysis reveals that a first iteration excluded the scientific instruments and would have been a far more conventional portrait. Lavoisier, often described as the father of modern chemistry, is shown with his wife, who kept logbooks of experiments and provided etched illustrations to his publications. He was also involved in studies of gunpowder, and a misunderstanding about his removal of this precious commodity from the Bastille in the summer of 1789 threw his alliances into question. This mishap and his status as a tax collector led him to be guillotined in 1794.
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