Anne-Louis Girodet was, after Ingres, the most gifted painter to emerge from the studio of Jacques-Louis David. Returning to Paris after his stay at the French Academy in Rome, Girodet developed a style marked by literary preciosity, imaginary pictorial effects, and exotic subjects and settings. This is the oil sketch for a lifesize portrait now at the Musée Girodet at Montargis. When the lifesize canvas was sold at the posthumous auction of Girodet's studio, it was catalogued as a portrait of an Indian and dated 1807. The costume, however, is Ottoman, not Indian.

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