François Pascal Simon Gérard, called Baron Gérard

This painting is one of two known ricordos of the original portrait by Gérard now in Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers (inv. no. MBA 66). Louis-Marie de la Révellière-Lépeaux sat to Gérard in the springtime of 1798 in Andilly, in the valley of Montmorency in the north of Paris. The two were close friends and the artist Gerard van Spaendonck, another friend of theirs, contributed the flowers which the sitter holds in his hand (which are not included in the ricordo).

Another ricordo of the portrait, on canvas and slightly smaller than the present work on panel, is in Versailles (inv. no. MV 4854). Gérard was known to paint these small sketches after his finished works to be kept in his own studio as a kind of remembrance of his great portraits; given this depicts a close friend, it is unsurprising that he might have completed more than one version. 

We are grateful to Alain Latreille for his assistance with the cataloguing of this painting.