Boze’s sweetly rendered portraits, usually executed in an oval format, were popular among wealthy patrons and members of the French court. But the painter—who was not an academically trained artist—found less success at the Salon, the official exhibition of Paris’s Académie des Beaux Arts; he exhibited there only once, in 1791. The children in this double‑portrait are traditionally identified as the Autichamp brothers, and most likely belonged to a Royalist family. (The older boy, Charles, later became a count.) Like other artists who aligned themselves with France’s upper class, Boze was forced to go into exile during the most violent period of the French Revolution.

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