Portret van de schrijver François René de Chateaubriand 1848

Marie-Alexandre Alophe created this portrait of the writer François-René de Chateaubriand using lithography, a printmaking technique, in France. During the 19th century, the rise of mass media and print culture led to a booming market for portraits of prominent figures. Chateaubriand, a celebrated author and diplomat, was a figure of great cultural significance in France, whose life spanned the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era, and the Bourbon Restoration. Alophe’s portrait captures Chateaubriand's intellectual aura and aristocratic bearing. The soft, diffused light and delicate lines of the lithograph lend a romantic quality to the image, in line with the literary movement with which Chateaubriand was associated. The portrait served to reinforce Chateaubriand's status as a cultural icon, circulating his image among a broad audience and shaping public perception. Historians consult sources like letters, diaries, and institutional records to reconstruct the social context of such images. Art, as we see here, is always contingent on the social and institutional conditions of its making.