Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne (French, 1769-1860)
Portrait of the Comte de Choulot de Chabaud la Tour and his Family
1806
oil on canvas
Helen M. Danforth Fund 2003.105

Antoine-Georges-François de Chabaud la Tour, who is portrayed on his estate in the south of France, was a supporter of Napoléon Bonaparte and a legislator in the city of Nîmes. Surrounded by his young family, he gestures toward a monument he had had constructed to the memory of his own father, a distinguished military man and engineer. The epitaph, translated as “He lived and died without reproach,” is a lesson in virtue to be passed down to future generations. The tender feelings shared by this family are evident in the poses of the older children, Rosina and James-Hippolyte, who rest on their father’s knees, and the infant son François-Ernest-Henri, who is cradled in the arms of his mother, Juliette Verdier de la Coste.

The artist, Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne, was also a native of Nîmes. He trained in the studio of the great French neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) and — like his subject Chabaud la Tour — served as a military officer under Napoléon.

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