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David. Lavoisier portrait, 1788.

I never get tired of this one. There is so much history packed into this one rectangle. In the last year before the Revolution the elite tried urgently to scrub off their pretentions. Fashion changed in a whirlwind and we know from infrared that this portrait was repainted to dress them way down as modest, loving Enlightenment scientists instead of freewheeling wealthy aristocratic fops. The man was beheaded anyway. It's such a last gasp. #Painting