Portrait of a Young Girl (Guérin)

Portrait of a Young Girl (French: Jeune fille en buste) is an oil on canvas painting by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, from in 1794. It is held at the Louvre, in Paris.

Portrait of a Young Girl
Artist	Pierre-Narcisse Guérin
Year	1794[1]
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	60 cm × 50 cm (24 in × 20 in)
Location	Louvre[1], Paris

Background

One of Guérin's early works, the painting treats the subject in a frank and direct way. It is a portrait of a young girl, depicted while covering her breasts with both hands. The smooth background, simplicity of the design and the use of the measured color are characteristic of the neo-classical style and of the school of Jean-Baptiste Regnault and Jacques-Louis David. The work was acquired by the Louvre in 1978.^[1]

The girl's short hair is inspired by the Titus cut (French: coiffure à la Titus),^[2] popular in France at the time and based on the hairstyle of the Roman era.^[3] In fact, the work is one of the first paintings to depict this hairstyle.^[4] The style may have taken its name from Titus Junius Brutus, son of the Roman politician Lucius Junius Brutus.^[5]

Mary Novik's debut novel, Conceit used the image for the cover of the book.^[2]