GABRIEL-FRANÇOIS DOYEN (PARIS, 1726 – SAINT PETERSBURG, 1806) A Young Woman Reading a Pamphlet, with her dog on her lap 1761 Oil on canvas 73 x 58.2 cm Signed and dated lower left ‘Doyen ’ On the reverse, seal of the Imperial Court of Russia. Provenance Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, Paris, 1770; Madame Ingres, Paris, 1894; Karl Lagerfeld, Christie’s, New York, 2000. Whilst this young woman, completely absorbed in her reading, pays us little attention, her young dog, comfortably settled on her lap, casts a slightly fearful glance in our direction. An accessory to his mistress’s attire, much like a muff, this puppy is the archetype of the lap dog. Her mistress, all dressed up, is lavishly attired in a silk dress, the scarlet of which is echoed in her headdress and even more so in the crimson of her cheeks, made up in the fashion of the time. Pearls encircle her neck and adorn her hair. Both her hairstyle and the raised lace collar are reminiscent of theatrical costumes, known as ‘à l’espagnole’, such as those found notably in Fragonard’s ‘figures de fantaisie’, Fragonard, his contemporaries, and more particularly in the young woman from *L’Étude*, held at the Louvre. This reader, painted from the waist up, fits perfectly into the oval composition. The colours are skilfully distributed, with this red punctuating the palette in a balanced manner. The bright light of artificial illumination bathes the model’s complexion, her face, her décolletage and her hand, whilst the background, cast into shadow, evokes a nocturnal scene. This is not a portrait but rather a fanciful figure of the sort that the elites of the Ancien Régime were fond of using to decorate their refined interiors. Gabriel-François Doyen (1726–1806) was a French painter who enjoyed a distinguished official career. Descended from a line of royal tapestry makers, Doyen trained in the studio of Carle van Loo. Having won the Prix de Rome in 1748, he travelled the length and breadth of Italy, from Turin to Palermo, studying the works of Domeni- quin, Cortone and Giordano. In 1761, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, where he served as a professor from 1776 onwards. Gabriel–François Doyen went on to become famous for the major commissions he received from the clergy, such as the Chapel of Saint Gregory in the Church of Les Invalides in Paris (1765–1772) and, in what is considered his masterpiece, the altarpiece of Saint Geneviève, *The Miracle of the Burning Ones* (1767) for the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris, a smaller version of which is on display at the Louvre. In 1774, the city of Reims commissioned him to create the urban decorations for the celebrations marking the coronation of Louis XVI. He also produced a series of paintings based on the *Iliad* to serve as models for the Gobelins tapestries. In a more secular vein, as evidenced by this *Young Reader*, Doyen became first painter to the Count of Artois in 1773, and subsequently to Monsieur, the king’s brother. These titles led him to flee France for Russia in 1792, where he became the painter to Tsar Paul I. It was thus that this painting belonged for a time to the imperial collections. Appointed director of the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg, Doyen went on to train numerous Russian painters and received several commissions for the decoration of imperial palaces.