Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours

Born in Switzerland to a Huguenot family from the Dauphiné gentry, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours trained with Joseph-Marie Vien, in whose studio he was able to rub shoulders with other neoclassical painters, most notably François-André Vincent.

Although he won the Prix de Rome in 1780, he was unable to benefit from the associated scholarship because of his religion. He nevertheless managed to get himself to the Eternal City, where he spent twelve years, only returning to Geneva in 1792. This charming portrait, dated 1790, probably belongs to his Roman period.

The young Marguerite Adélaïde Boissier (1773–1839) is shown here in the flower of her youth, barely seventeen years old. From a French Protestant family who had settled in Geneva, like Saint-Ours, in 1801 she married the famous physician and chemist Charles-Gaspard de la Rive (1770–1834) with whom she had one son, Auguste, who was himself a renowned physician and an important political figure.