A portrait of a woman in a negligee by Alexandre Roslin

The influence of Alexandre Roslin was immediately suggested for this portrait, as the realism of the figure, as well as its modelling, is reminiscent of the style of the famous Swedish painter, a portraitist of the European aristocracy in the^mid-18thcentury.

This work should be viewed in the context of the famous portrait of the Marquise de Marigny ‘in a dressing gown’, painted by Alexandre Roslin (Stockholm, private collection). The painting was exhibited at the 1767 Salon, listed in the catalogue under the title ‘The Portrait of Madame the Marquise de ***, in a morning gown’. The ‘en négligé’ portrait stood in contrast to the formal portrait; by the end of the^17th century, the term carried no negative connotations, as it simply referred to comfortable attire. It even became fashionable, as illustrated by the portrait of a woman (Paris, Musée Carnavalet) painted by Jean François Gilles Colson (1733–1803), or the Portrait of Madame Depestre, Countess of Seneffe, by Antoine Vestier (1740–1824), held at the Château de Seneffe in Belgium. The fashion for the ‘chemise dress’ of the 1780s then replaced the ‘négligé’, particularly following the famous portrait painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun of Marie-Antoinette in a chemise dress, which was exhibited at the 1783 Salon.

From the^18th century onwards, the term ‘négligé’ took on multiple meanings. Beyond the realm of clothing, it could be applied to an artist’s style, both in painting and in literature. In some respects, the ‘négligé’ evokes Baldassare Castiglione’s ‘sprezzatura’ (Il Libro del Cortegiano, 1528), that feigned ‘nonchalance’ which is one of the virtues of a man of the court.  The ‘négligé’ thus pertains to an elite social practice characterised by a concern for self-presentation.

It can therefore be linked to the idea of ‘naturalness’ so fashionable in the second half of^{the 18th} century, insofar as the ‘négligé’ style is connected to the rejection of dress codes, helping to blur the social hierarchy of the Ancien Régime and enabling individual self-expression. The ‘négligé’ is also linked to the campaign waged by hygienists against the extreme rigidity of clothing, which was tending towards greater simplicity. Naturalness spread to clothing, hairstyles, make-up and the reduction in heel height. Etiquette gradually lost its aura, and the flexibility of attire was now evident in informal public outfits.

Aulteribe’s portrait, which can be roughly dated to the 1780s on the basis of the hairstyle, echoes the ‘en négligé’ style, further emphasised by the wearing of the ‘chemise dress’. Its naturalism is as pronounced as the era demanded: the subject, a woman of mature age, is in no way idealised, as evidenced by her sagging neck and the dark circles under her eyes.  The woman depicted bears a strong physical resemblance to the Countess of Seneffe painted by Antoine Vestier, but the two portraits differ significantly in their composition. Antoine Vestier, in fact, includes toiletries, which feature prominently in the foreground of the painting. The oval format and the simplicity of the background are more in keeping with the portrait by Jean François Gilles Colson held at the Musée Carnavalet.

However, the colour palette, the rendering of the fine percale or diaphanous muslin, and the expression in her eyes are indeed more reminiscent of the art of Alexandre Roslin. Diderot described it as follows in his commentary on Roslin’s portrait of the Countess of Egmont Pignatelli at the 1763 Salon: ‘The dress is not a bad imitation of satin. The flesh tones are a little pale. […] On the whole, the whole picture looks rather pale; this is because the aim was to create brilliance and impact.”

Although Swedish, Alexandre Roslin was practising in Paris from 1750, where he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1753. He gradually established himself amongst a clientele of French and foreign aristocrats. Between 1774 and 1778, he travelled to Stockholm, then to St Petersburg, summoned by Catherine II, and finally to Warsaw and Vienna, where he was celebrated everywhere for his talents as a portrait painter.

Élise Urbain Ruano, The Fashion for the Negligé and the French Portrait: From Sprezzatura to the ‘Natural’ (1670–1790), PhD thesis supervised by Patrick Michel and Denis Bruna (University of Lille, 14 Feb. 2020)

Élise Urbain Ruano, ‘The Taste for the Negligé in^18th-Century French Portraiture’, *Dix-huitième siècle*, vol. 48, no. 1, 2016, pp. 569–586.

Magnus Olausson and Xavier Salmon, Alexandre Roslin: A Portraitist for Europe, exhibition catalogue, Paris, RMN, 2008.