This double portrait pays tribute to the warm relationship of its subjects, the two children of Jean-Louis-Anne de Hautefort, comte de Vaudre, under the Ancien Régime a colonel attached to the Boulonnais regiment, and superior officer of the Gardes du corps du Roi. Beyond this painting, the only other thing I know about Gustave, comte d'Hautefort (1785-1850), and his sister Thaïs (1784-1845) is that the siblings married other siblings - Adélaide de Maillé de La Tour-Landry and Charles Théodore Bélisaire de Maillé de La Tour-Landry, marquis de Jalesnes, respectively - and on the same day, 28 May 1805.
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There seems to be some confusion as to who actually painted this portrait. It was sold at auction at Sotheby's only a little over two years ago as the work of Danloux. But another dealer and expert currently claims it as the work of Adèle Romanée, a much lesser known artist of the period who is still being "rediscovered"; there has been much recent research on her life and art, and some paintings previously attributed to David and Regnault have been restored to her oeuvre. Comparing this portrait with the works of both artists, though, it seems much more likely to be by the hand of Danloux. The painting is, over all, much more sophisticated and technically consistent than Romanée's work. And it appears to show the influence - as the Sotheby's catalogue argues - of Raeburn and other of the great British portrait painters of the day, artists that Danloux encountered at the time of his stay in England during the 1790s.
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