| Portrait of a Young Girl | |
| Artist: | Pierre-Narcisse Guérin |
| Year: | 1794[1] |
| Medium: | Oil on canvas |
| Width Metric: | 50 |
| Height Metric: | 60 |
| Museum: | Louvre |
| City: | Paris |
Portrait of a Young Girl (French: Jeune fille en buste) is an oil on canvas painting by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, from in 1794 and exhibited at the Louvre in Paris.
One of Guérin's early works, the painting treats the subject in a frank and direct way. It is a portrait of a young girl, depicted while covering her breasts with both hands. The smooth background, simplicity of the design and the use of the measured color are characteristic of the neo-classical style and of the school of Jean-Baptiste Regnault and Jacques-Louis David. The work was acquired by the Louvre in 1978.
The girl's short hair is inspired by the Titus cut (French: coiffure à la Titus),[2] popular in France at the time and based on the hairstyle of the Roman era.[3] In fact, the work is one of the first paintings to depict this hairstyle.[4] The style may have taken its name from Titus Junius Brutus, son of the Roman politician Lucius Junius Brutus.[5]
Mary Novik's debut novel, Conceit used the image for the cover of the book.[2]