Antique 18th Century French Portrait Oil Painting of a Young Woman with a Rose

A young woman turns to meet the viewer, a single pink rose held to her breast, her brown gown cut wide at the neck and trimmed with fine lace. She is painted half-length against a dark ground, in the manner of late-17th and early-18th-century French portraiture, with light falling softly across her face, her throat, and the rose, so that she emerges from the shadow around her. The rose is the old emblem of love and fleeting youth, a device French portraitists favored for a young sitter.

An 18th-century French School portrait, unsigned, the work of an accomplished but unrecorded hand. A handwritten note on the reverse of the stretcher records it as a family portrait from an estate opened in May 1892, carrying its history back well over a century.

Why We Love It
This is the hardest painting we have had to list. We keep finding reasons to keep her.

It is hard to say exactly why. She is not conventionally beautiful, and that is the point. The faces that hold us longest rarely are. With her, it is the eyes. She looks at you as though she is holding something back, something she has decided not to tell you, and that withheld thing is what keeps you in front of her, reading her face for the answer. You never get it. You keep looking anyway.

We tried to explain the pull and finally stopped trying. Some portraits simply have presence, and she has it in full. If she does to you what she has done to us, you will understand why we could barely bring ourselves to let her go.

Key Features:

• Origin: France
• Provenance: Inscribed by hand on the reverse of the stretcher, recorded as a family portrait from an estate opened in May 1892
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Period: 18th century
• Dimensions: 29 1/4" x 24 9/16"
• Condition: Good antique condition for its age, ready to hang. The canvas was previously restretched, and the painting carries earlier restorations. Areas of old paint loss have since been professionally retouched and color-matched, as is normal for a painting of this age; the retouching is visible under UV light. A fine network of stable craquelure across the surface, consistent with age. The giltwood frame shows some wear, and a small area of gesso loss at the top-left corner has been cosmetically restored and color-matched by a professional restorer and is not readily visible. Please see photos for details.
• The piece will be shipped from Los Angeles