English: This drawing represents a famous event that took place on 7 September 1789, barely two months after the official beginning of the French Revolution. On that day, twenty-one wives or daughters of Parisian artists decided to donate their own jewelry to the cause of the Revolution, and a group of eleven of them went the Assemblée Constituante (Assemblée Nationale), then assembled in Versailles, to formalize the donation. The Assemblée had already by then abolished most feudal privileges and taxes, and was in dire need of money. The women’s gesture was widely described as a Patriotic offering made at the Altar of the Nation, and was thought reminiscent of the culture of ancient Greece. Indeed, the deputation came dressed in plain white robes, just wearing the revolutionary cockade “without ornament, without pomp, but adorned with that beautiful simplicity which characterizes virtue,” as a journal of the period described them.

The group was lead by Mme. Moitte and included amongst others Mmes. Vien, Lagrenée, Suvée, Duvivier, Fragonard, Vestier, Peyron, David and Vernet. They delivered a speech, read for them by a member of the Assemblée, before returning to Paris amid roaring crowds. The donation was quite meagre, but it was the first of many such gifts, so numerous that the Assemblée was forced to cut short debate, and open a register. Soon enough all the nation, including the aristocrats and even King Louis XVI, made important donations to the Assemblée.

Dedicated by Guillon Lethière to Martin Drölling