Gérard, a student of David, was first painter to the empress Joséphine while the sitter, born Catherine Verlée, was one of the celebrated beauties of her time. She seduced her first husband, George Francis Grand, in one of a series of liaisons that culminated in her becoming the wife of the statesman Talleyrand. However by the time this portrait was painted, about 1805, he had tired of her frivolity, and the couple had separated. Thus the picture not a pendant to either of the portraits of Talleyrand (by Gérard and by Prud’hon) that hang nearby.

Noël-Catherine Verlée (sometimes spelled Worlée) was born in 1761, to a French minor official and his wife posted to the Danish colony in Madras. At the age of fifteen she married an English civil servant of Swiss descent working in Calcutta, George Francis Grand (b. ca. 1750). Embarrassed by a scandalous affair, in 1780 she moved to Paris, where she flaunted her youth, beauty, and inexplicable affluence in fashionable salons. The portrait that Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun painted of her in 1783 (MMA 53.225.5) attests to her lively personality and stunning looks at the time.

In the late 1790s Madame Grand entered into a highly visible affair with Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), prince de Bénévent, the brilliant statesman and former bishop of Autun, who had become a principal figure in the emerging government of the Directory (see the portrait of him painted by Pierre Paul Prud’hon in 1817; MMA 1994.190). When she was arrested on suspicion of espionage in March 1798, Talleyrand secured her freedom by declaring his interest in her to Paul, vicomte de Barras (1755–1829), then one of the three Directors of the eponymous government.

Estranged from her husband for ten years, Madame Grand, in 1798, obtained a divorce in absentia. Elaborate negotiations with Napoleon and the Vatican were required before the former bishop was allowed to marry at Neuilly on September 10, 1802; despite the First Consul's strong reservations, Napoleon and Josephine signed their marriage contract. Upon their first official reception at the Tuileries, Napoleon is alleged to have remarked, "I hope that the good conduct of citoyenne Talleyrand will cause the fickleness of Madame Grand to be forgotten." Madame Talleyrand rebounded smartly, "In that respect, I cannot do better than to follow the example of citoyenne [Josephine] Bonaparte" [see W. Charrière de Sévery, "George-François (-Francis) Grand, premier mari de la princesse de Talleyrand: Quelques lettres de lui écrites de 1802 à 1808," Revue historique vaudoise 33 (January 1925), pp. 14–15]. Napoleon ensured that Madame de Talleyrand was rarely at court.

François Gérard, who had been a favorite pupil of Jacques Louis David (1748–1825), demonstrated a youthful solidarity with the Revolution, but his political views became more moderate thereafter. Portraiture, an ascendant genre during the Directory, was Gérard's primary métier, and as a result the painter was showered with honors and sought out by royalty and nobles under every administration for the remainder of his life. Although the terms of this commission have not been found, it is unlikely that the portrait of Princess Talleyrand was ordered before the sitter’s marriage in 1802 or after 1805, by which time Prince Talleyrand was preoccupied with other women. (He already had taken an official mistress, Madame Dubois, when he married in 1802 [see Ref. Waresquiel 2003, p. 310].) A commission date of 1804–5 accords well with Talleyrand's prominence in Napoleon's new imperial court, where he served as both minister of foreign affairs and grand chamberlain. The princess's costume, sheer, gold-embroidered silk voile over white satin (tunique en grande parure), worn with slippers without heels, is similar to those worn by Empress Josephine in her 1801 portrait by Gérard (State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg) and in her 1805 portrait by Prud'hon (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Prud’hon also drew a bust-length portrait of Princess Talleyrand in profile around this time, in ca. 1806–7 (Hermitage). Thrown over the chair in the Museum’s picture is a cashmere paisley shawl, made fashionable after the 1798 French campaign in Egypt, a highly desired and expensive status symbol throughout the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The costume thus cannot be dated any more precisely than the first decade of the nineteenth century.

The interior in which Princess Talleyrand is depicted has not been securely identified. The distinctive window over the firebox, achieved by deviating the flues around the window frame, points to a Parisian salon. The up-to-date furnishings are elegant but restrained: the velvet upholstery and custom-woven carpet in complementary colors would have been expensive, and the gilt-painted klysmos chair very fashionable—the one surviving preparatory drawing (Musée des beaux-arts, Besançon) shows sketches of alternative chairs—but the room, with its loosely-draped walls in the neo-grec mode, is neither sumptuous nor nouveau riche. The vases on the mantle, tôle rather than bronze, point to economy. But the muted pea green of the room provides a splendid foil for the elongated figure of Princess Talleyrand. Her chaste white dress alludes to propriety and grace, while the suggestive transparency of the silk sheath and the tight-fitting bodice underscore her sensuality. By placing her next to the chimney, Gérard achieved a tour de force of illumination, lighting her smiling face with the pale gray Parisian daylight but highlighting her long legs with the warm light of the unseen fire.

Evidence surrounding the dating of this painting and the fact that Gérard completed a portrait of Talleyrand (MMA 2012.348) in 1808 have served as bases for the presumption that the two pictures were commissioned as pendants [see Ref. Tinterow 2005], but this has now been ruled out. By 1809 Talleyrand's affection for his wife had diminished. He banished her from Paris in 1815, but she returned from London and Brussels in 1817 and lived quietly in the French capital. The whereabouts of the portrait during this period are not known, but as Princess Talleyrand predeceased her husband, he must have inherited her belongings. The canvas subsequently descended in the family of Talleyrand's brother. There is a reduced and rather summary repetition of this portrait that the artist executed for himself (oil on canvas, 12 5/8 x 8 5/8 in. [32 x 22 cm], Musée nationale du Château de Versailles).

[2012; adapted from Ref. Tinterow 2005]

presumably the sitter's husband, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, prince de Bénévent (until d. 1838); his brother, comte Bozon de Talleyrand-Périgord, and his wife, née de Puisigneux; their daughter, Elisabeth de Talleyrand-Périgord, duchesse de Peissac-Esclignac; her daughter, Georgine Xaverine Honorine Jacqueline d'Esclignac, marquise de Persan; her son, marquis de Persan; his daughter, Marguerite de Persan, baronne Jacques Eschasseriaux; her sons, barons Philippe and Hugues Eschasseriaux, château de Maureilhan, near Béziers (until 2002; sale, Sotheby's, New York, January 24, 2002, no. 76, to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," October 24, 2008–February 1, 2009, online catalogue.

Joachim Le Breton. "Beaux-arts." Rapport historique sur l'état des beaux-arts en France depuis 1789 et sur leur état actuel, présenté à sa majesté l'empereur et roi, en son conseil d'état, le 5 mars 1808. Paris, [?1809], p. 79 [reprinted in Le Breton, "Beaux-arts: Rapports à l'Empereur sur le progrès des sciences, des lettres et des arts depuis 1789," vol. 5, Paris, [1989], p. 124], mentions it as one of Gérard's principal portraits.

Ch. Lenormant. François Gérard, peintre d'histoire. Paris, 1847, p. 182, lists it among full-length portraits of 1805 and notes that it was engraved by Dickinson.

H[enri]. G[érard]. "Gravures à l'eau-forte: Collection des 83 portraits historiques en pied." Œuvre du baron François Gérard, 1789–1836. 1, Paris, 1852–53, unpaginated, ill. frontispiece (etching by Adam), includes it under 1808 in a chronological listing of his full-length historical portraits.

H. Vollmer in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 13, Leipzig, 1920, p. 436, dates it 1805.

Vicomte de Reiset. "Le roman de las pincess [sic] de Talleyrand." Historia (May 1953), ill. p. 548 (detail).

Annette Joelson. Courtesan Princess: Catherine Grand, Princesse de Talleyrand. Philadelphia, 1965, p. 206.

J. Bertaut. "L'extravagante." Historia no. 245 (April 1967), ill. p. 57.

Pierre Viguié. "Le mariage de Talleyrand." Revue de Paris (March 1970), p. 119, dates it 1803.

Alain Latreille. "François Gérard (1770–1837): catalogue raisonné des portraits peints par le baron François Gérard." PhD diss., École du Louvre, Paris, 1973, pp. 34, 111, no. 50, dates it 1808.

Claire Constans. Musée national du château de Versailles: Les peintures. Paris, 1995, vol. 1, p. 367, under no. 2081, mentions it in connection with the replica at Versailles, dating both works 1808.

Yveline Cantarel-Besson in Napoléon, Images et histoire: peintures du château de Versailles (1789–1815). Paris, 2001, p. 82 under no. 65, mentioned it as the source for the ricordo at Versailles.

Christopher Apostle. "Revolution in Art." Sotheby's Preview (January 2002), pp. 6–7, 124–26, ill. (color, overall and detail), dates it about 1805 and notes that the sitter was as famous for her dissolute lifestyle as for her irresistible charm; comments on its exceptional quality, unlined condition, and unbroken provenance.

Gary Tinterow in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2001–2002." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 60 (Fall 2002), pp. 5, 27, ill. (color).

Gary Tinterow. "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2002–2003." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 61 (Fall 2003), p. 29.

Emmanuel de Waresquiel. Talleyrand: Le prince immobile. [Paris], 2003, pp. 301, 672 n. 2, colorpl. XX.

Gary Tinterow in The Wrightsman Pictures. New York, 2005, pp. 276–81, no. 75, ill. (color), notes that it may have been commissioned as one of a pair along with a portrait of Talleyrand (private collection, France) that was exhibited in the Salon of 1808; comments that the setting appears to be the interior of a Parisian salon rather than one of Talleyrand's country houses.

Emmanuel de Waresquiel in Talleyrand ou le miroir trompeur. Exh. cat., Musée Rolin, Autun. Paris, 2005, p. 80, under no. 59, ill. (color).

Olivier Blanc. Portraits de femmes artistes et modèles à l'époque de Marie-Antoinette. Paris, 2006, p. 42.

Gary Tinterow in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 5, 252, no. 3, ill. (color and black and white).

Everett Fahy in Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977–2008. New York, 2009, p. 33.