Portrait of the Comtesse d'Artois, seated half-length, in a pink silk dress with white lace and a plumed headdress

The sitter for the present portrait, said to be the Comtesse d'Artois, is elegantly dressed in a pink gown embellished with creamy lace, her powdered coiffure topped with a jauntily-angled feathered hat. The style of her gown represents the height of fashion at the time, closely resembling that worn by the sitter in a sketch by Moreau le Jeune dated 1778, in such elements as the large bow at her décolletage and lace-trimmed, three-quarter-length sleeves.

The Comtesse d'Artois, Maria Teresa (1756-1805), was the wife of King Charles X and the mother of Louis XV's first great-grandson in the male line, the future Duke of Angoulême. She would have been approximately 30 years old at the time the present portrait was painted.