Portrait of Jacques-François Desmaisons

Jacques-Louis David

1782

oil on canvas

Buffalo AKG Art Museum

When he was only nine years old, Jacques-Louis David’s father was killed in a pistol duel, and his uncles, architects François Buron (French, 1731–1818) and Jacques-François Desmaisons (French, ca. 1720–1789), helped raise him. Buron and Desmaisons encouraged David to follow them in the profession, but David found himself preoccupied with drawing and went on to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In this painting, David portrays Desmaisons seated at a table with the tools of his trade: architectural drawings, a ruler, a compass, and books about architecture. The spine of one of the books is imprinted with the name of Andrea