Portrait of Alphonse Leroy

French artist Jacques-Louis David painted this portrait of Doctor Alphonse Leroy in 1783, the same year it was exhibited at the Paris Salon. Leroy was a physician and man-midwife who had attended Madame David during the birth of her first child, giving the artist ample opportunity to study his subject. The painting shows Leroy leaning on a closed copy of Hippocrates' Morbi mulierum, a work on women's illnesses.

On the desk sits a "lampe à quinquet," an oil lamp that Leroy himself invented. Together with the medical text, this lamp references Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, which identifies lamps and books as attributes of scholarly study. The naturalistic attention to detail and bright tonality reveal David's debt to Flemish painters, whose work he studied during an 1781 visit to Flanders.

One of David's pupils, Jean-François Garneray, assisted with painting the hands and fabrics. The portrait measures 91 by 72 centimeters and hangs at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, which purchased it in 1829. It remains one of David's finest portrait works from before the French Revolution.