Picture of the day

Catherine Grand (1761–1835) was a French courtesan and noblewoman. Born in India as the daughter of a French East India Company officer, she married George Grand, an officer of the English East India Company. After her marriage, she had a scandalous liaison with Bengal councillor Philip Francis in Calcutta. Her husband sent her to Paris, where she became a popular courtesan, having relationships with several powerful men, and was known as Madame Grand. She became the mistress and later the wife of French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the first prime minister of France. This 1783 oil-on-canvas portrait of Grand was painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. It was exhibited at the Salon of the Royal Academy in Paris the same year, as one of at least ten portraits submitted by Le Brun, and was favourably received. The painting is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Painting credit: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun