The Portraitist: A Novel of Adelaide Labille-Guiard

(Paperback)

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Only two obstacles stand in Adlades way of becoming the most sought-after woman portraitist in eighteenth-century Paris: a beautiful, talented rival and one of the bloodiest revolutions in history.

Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adlae Labille-Guiards fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris.

With a beautiful rival whos better connected and better trained than she is, Adlade faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. Meanwhile, her rival goes from strength to strength, becoming Marie Antoinettes official portraitist and gaining entrance to the elite Acadmie Royale at the same time as Adlade.

When at last Adlade earns her own royal appointment and receives a massive commission from a member of the royal family, the timing couldnt be worse: its 1789, and with the fall of the Bastille her world is turned upside down by political chaos and revolution. With danger around every corner in her beloved Paris, she must find a way adjust to the new order, carving out a life and a career all over again and stay alive in the process.

Reviews

An imaginative work that brings the story of a little-known artist to vivid life.

Kirkus Reviews

Written with breathless drama,The Portraitistfollows the rise of the gifted portraitist Adlade Labille-Guiard in Paris during the last years of the late eighteenth century. The novel is a luminous depiction of Paris and those terrible times seen through the astute, compassionate eyes of a woman who had to paint. Every bit of lace or royal carriage or bloody cobblestone is alive in the writing. The rain drumming on the skylight and a misbuttoned coat speak. Go to those streets with this book in your hand to follow her footsteps and those long-gone, turbulent times will come alive to you as if they were yesterday.
Stephanie Cowell, award-winning author ofClaude and Camille

Deeply researched and imagined,The Portraitistoffers a fascinating and dramatic plunge into the world of a brilliant female artist struggling to make her mark before and during the turbulent and treacherous era of the French Revolution. I loved this novel.
Sandra Gulland, internationally best-selling author of The Josephine B. Trilogy

InThe Portraitist, Susanne Dunlap skillfully paints a portrait of a woman struggling to make her way in a man's world--a topic as relevant today as it was in Ancien Rgime France. Impeccably researched, rich with period detail, Dunlap brings to life the little-known true story of Adelaide Labille-Guiard, who fought her husband and society to make a name for herself as a painter to the royal family, the very apex of success--only to find everything she had built threatened by the Revolution. A stunning story of determination, talent, and reversals of fortune. As a lifelong Elisabeth Vige Le Brun fan, I am now questioning my allegiances!
Lauren Willig, best-selling author ofThe Summer Country

Author Bio

Susanne Dunlap is the author of twelve works of historical fiction for adults and teens, as well as an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. Her love of historical fiction arose partly from her PhD studies in music history at Yale University, partly from her lifelong interest in women in the arts as a pianist and non-profit performing arts executive. Her novel The Paris Affair was a first place CIBA award winner. The Musicians Daughter was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Bank Street Childrens Book of the Year, and was nominated for the Utah Book Award and the Missouri Gateway Readers Prize. In the Shadow of the Lamp was an Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award nominee. Susanne earned her BA and an MA (musicology) from Smith College and lives in Biddeford, Maine, with her little dog, Betty.