Portrait of Françoise Simonnier and her Daughter

This painting is an autograph second version of the portrait of Fran�oise Simonnier and her daughter which is now in the collection of the Wallraf-Richarz Museum, Cologne.

Fran�oise Simonnier was a laundress and the mistress of Gros, with whom she had a daughter in 1827. Gros depicts her as a radiant young woman holding their child on her lap; the girl pulls gently at the bodice of her mother’s dress revealing her breast. Both sitters engage the viewer directly, drawing them into this intimate moment.