Portrait de Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste, comte de Choiseul-Gouffier 

Louis Léopold Boilly painted this portrait of Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste, comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, using oil on canvas. Boilly, like many portraitists of his era, was deeply concerned with capturing the textures and surfaces of status. Look closely, and you can see how much attention has been paid to the fall of lace, the sheen of the Comte's powdered wig, and the gold embroidery on his coat. Oil paint, with its capacity for endless blending and layering, was ideal for this project. The artist would have built up the image gradually, adding thin glazes of color to create a convincing illusion of depth and detail. While we can admire Boilly's technical skill, it's worth remembering that the portrait is also a document of social inequality. The Comte's luxurious clothing and leisurely pose speak to a life of privilege, one enabled by the labor of others. Even the materials of the painting itself – the pigments, the canvas, the brushes – were products of a complex global economy, one that concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. By attending to these material and social dimensions, we can gain a richer understanding of the portrait's meaning and its place in history.