depict the physiognomy and materials with painstaking precision. He applied paint in such a polished manner that the brushwork is not visible and reduced his colors to simple contrasts of strong tones. The sitter is always looking at the viewer in an intense and level manner. Laneuville's style was so similar to that of David, that many of his works have been wrongly attributed to David. An example of his style is the Portrait of Jean Antoine Joseph Debry (1793, Indiana University Art Museum). Debry was a deputy to the National Convention which was to draw up a constitution for France following the Revolution. Debry is shown in the portrait with a serious expression which invites the viewer to share in his exercise of Republican responsibility and virtues. This type of representation suited the revolutionary ideas of the politically engaged individual. While Laneuville almost exclusively made portraits of men, he was able to gain a commission from Thérésa Tallien, a rising star in Paris social circles following the termination of the Reign of Terror. She had been imprisoned herself in the last days of the Terror as she was the mistress of Jean-Lambert Tallien, who had fallen in disgrace for his criticism of the bloody methods of the Terrorist regime. A letter she was able to slip to her lover Jean-Lambert Tallien from her cell prompted him to mount the conspiracy that terminated the Reign of Terror. After the Reign of Terror had ended and she was released, she asked Laneuville 1795 to make a portrait of her in her cell. In the portrait Laneuville combined the conventions of male portraiture, which emphasized physical and psychological immediacy with the conventions of female portraiture which emphasized passivity. The depiction of the cell is believed to have been based on Tallien’s own description of the conditions of her incarceration. She is shown holding a lock of hair in her hand, hair that had been cut off in anticipation of her upcoming execution by the guillotine. On the wall behind her there is a drawing in profile of a man but it is not known of whom. The portrait of Thérésa Tallien was exhibited at the Salon of 1796, where it caused a scandal. It was removed from public view after a few days. It is likely that the painful memories of the Terror it evoked (especially that famous lock of hair cut