The Portraitist

Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adlade Labille-Guiards fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris. With a beautiful rival whos better connected and better trained than she is, Adlade faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. Meanwhile, her rival goes from strength to strength, becoming Marie Antoinettes official portraitist and gaining entrance to the elite Acadmie Royale at the same time as Adlade. When at last Adlade earns her own royal appointment and receives a massive commission from a member of the royal family, the timing couldnt be worse: its 1789, and with the fall of the Bastille her world is turned upside down by political chaos and revolution. With danger around every corner in her beloved Paris, she must find a way adjust to the new order, carving out a life and a career all over againand stay alive in the process.