Jacques-Louis David painted this portrait of the Comtesse Daru as a surprise gift for her husband, a prominent figure in Napoleon’s regime. The leader of the neoclassical school of painting when this portrait was executed, in 1810, David painted it in part to thank Comte Daru for finally securing for him the hefty payment he was owed for his monumental painting of the coronation of Napoleon and Josephine as emperor and empress of France. It is among the rare, personal portraits of this period by David, who as first painter to the emperor was occupied with propagandistic works during Napoleon’s reign.

Pictured here in her mid-twenties, already the mother of six, Alexandrine wears a bathing-cap-like headdress of white flowers, probably a tiara of orange blossoms, in harmony with her white satin and muslin gown. The green stones of her necklace and earrings have been called emeralds, but as such their value would have been enormous. Perhaps they are, instead, chalcedony, or jade. Her empire-waist dress leaves her arms bare; costly cashmere shawls like the one she drapes around her were extremely popular among her class and imported to France from the east. Her chair appears to be mahogany, a costly luxury from the colonies in the Caribbean. It is decorated with gilt bronze sphinxes in which David has marvelously reflected the red pattern of her shawl.

The French novelist Stendhal, a cousin of Count Daru, admired his friend the countess, describing her in a letter as “rather stout, with dark chestnut hair, black and very thick eyebrows, small, quite sparkling eyes.” To Stendhal, who seems to have been infatuated with her, her appearance and features revealed her “warm temperament” and “forceful, frank, and jolly character.”

Five years after the portrait was painted, the countess died giving birth to her twelfth child.