Blank; verso: Julie Clary, Wife of Joseph Napoleon, Later Queen of Spain 1805 - 1806

Curator: Here we have a sketch by Jacques-Louis David, dating from around the late 18th or early 19th century. It's a study for a portrait of Julie Clary, who would later become Queen of Spain, rendered in delicate pencil on paper. Editor: There's an immediate sense of fragility, isn't there? Almost like a fleeting thought captured on the page. The grid makes me think about the artist’s process. Curator: Indeed. David's use of the grid points to a methodical approach, a system for transferring the preliminary sketch to a larger canvas, indicative of academic training and workshop practice. Editor: It's also a peek behind the curtain, isn't it? Exposing the labor involved in creating the image of royalty—that a queen begins as a sketch on a gridded page. Curator: Precisely, it reminds us that even representations of power are constructed, material, and rooted in specific labor practices. Editor: I’ll certainly look at finished portraits differently now. A glimpse of the scaffold changes everything. Curator: It does invite us to reflect on the means through which images of authority were made and consumed in David's era. Editor: And how easily we can forget the underlying structures.