Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) and Marie Anne Lavoisier (Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze, 1758–1836)

The chemist Antoine Lavoisier sits writing at a table covered in red velvet while his wife, Marie Anne, leans on his shoulder and looks out at the viewer. Glass flasks and a gasometer stand on the table and floor, and a portfolio at left alludes to Marie Anne’s talent as a draftswoman: she studied with David and illustrated her husband’s publications. Lavoisier, often called the father of modern chemistry, established the law of conservation of mass and named oxygen and hydrogen. Commissioned by the couple in 1788, this double portrait presents scientific work and marital partnership together — an unusual conception for its time. The picture was meant for the Salon of 1789 but was withdrawn amid the political tensions of the Revolution. A few years later Lavoisier, a former tax farmer, was guillotined during the Terror, lending the painting’s calm brilliance a poignant afterlife.