Portrait of a Man

Lafitte won first place in the prix de Rome of 1791 and was awarded study as a pensionnaire at the Académie de France in Rome. It was in Rome that he created this psychologically penetrating portrait of a stylish and pensive young man against a dramatically lit sky. The proto-Romantic sensibility of the sheet is emphasized by the composition, which sets the subject, perhaps a fellow artist, against a distant landscape with a low horizon line.

Credit: Purchase, Guy Wildenstein Gift, 2012...