His less formal portraits reflect his fascination with physiognomy and show an interest in expanding the range of facial expressions beyond those of conventional portraiture.
[1] In 1769, Ducreux was sent to Vienna in order to paint a miniature of Marie Antoinette before she left the city in 1770 and married Louis XVI of France.
Other portraits by Ducreux include those of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and Maria Theresa of Austria, as well as those mentioned above of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Ducreux also made several well-known self-portraits in the 1780s and 1790s, including one in 1783 in which he painted himself in the middle of a large yawn (the Getty Center, Los Angeles).
[5] In another, Portrait de l'artiste sous les traits d'un moqueur (c. 1793, Louvre), the artist guffaws and points at the viewer.
[7] Through unusual body language and physical appearances, these portraits parallel the vivacious tronies of Dutch Golden Age painting and the "character heads" of contemporary Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736–1783), some of whose busts were self-portraits with extreme expressions.
In the meme, rap and pop song lyrics, common internet phrases, and similar tropes are paraphrased in verbose, stilted, or faux-archaic English and overlaid on top of the portrait to create an image macro.