Portrait of a Family of Musicians

Between Marguerite Gérard's sentimental genre scene, typical of female artists and reminiscent of Boilly's early work, inherited from Greuze, and the pre-Romanticism of Prud'hon and his pupil Constance Mayer, this work immerses us in the intimacy of a family of musicians, with sheet music on their knees and a piano in the background, in the aftermath of the Revolution.

Behind this happiness and family love, however, there is a hint of melancholy, betrayed by the palette and the expressions on the faces. A tragedy, perhaps due to the Reign of Terror, is suggested by the gray portrait of a violinist in a blackened oval wooden frame in the background.

The absence of the father, if there is one, seems to have strengthened the maternal bonds expressed here by the tenderness of an arm around the neck or wrist.

The intimacy and spontaneity of the scene are accentuated by a delicate still life featuring a Paris porcelain tea set embellished with a draped towel that completes this small, isolated composition.