Her costume is that in fashion at the end of the 18th century – powdered hair, a white dress with a lace-edged ruffled neckline, and a blue fabric sash.

[citation needed] Antoine Lavoisier is seated, wearing a black vest, culottes, stockings and buckled shoes, a white shirt with a lace jabot and powdered hair.

The table is covered with scarlet velvet, many papers, a casket, an inkwell with two more quill pens, a barometer, a gasometer, a water still and a glass bell jar.

It was not permitted to be put on public display at the Paris Salon for fear that an image of Lavoisier – a figure connected to the royal court and the Ancien Régime – might provoke anti-aristocratic aggression from viewers.

Using infrared reflectography and macro x-ray fluorescence mapping, investigators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art discovered several important features which David altered in the final portrait.

Marie-Anne initially was depicted wearing an elegant hat called a chapeau à la Tarare, named after the successful Beaumarchais and Salieri's opera, which were exceedingly popular among wealthy Parisian women in 1787.

[7] In 1836, the painting was left by Marie-Anne to her great-niece, and it remained in the collection of the Comtesse de Chazelles and her descendants until 1924, when it was bought by John D. Rockefeller.