Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and Marie Anne Lavoisier

1788

Oil on canvas, 102 1/4 × 76 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A marriage portrait that is also a portrait of science: the couple share the canvas with scientific instruments on the table.

Look at

The white dress forms one large pale shape at left, balanced by the red velvet table at right.
Her standing figure leans down and his seated figure looks up, so the two make one connected diagonal.
Glass and brass are painted with sharp highlights, more precise than anything else on the canvas.

Technical study published in 2021 found a first version without the instruments: she wore a large flowered hat, and the red cloth covered a gilt-mounted desk.
It did not appear at the Salon of 1789; the Met bought it in 1977.