George Sand

George Sand, was a French novelist and memoirist. Today’s painting is one of the few portraits painted by Delacroix, and a originally part of a larger, now lost “romantic portrait” of the lovers George Sand and the composer Frédéric Chopin. Delacroix probably gathered his two friends around a piano in his studio. Why, when and how the picture was split up is uncertain, but the portrait of Chopin is now in the Louvre in Paris. George Sand was famous in Paris for wearing men's clothing in public — which she justified by the clothes being far sturdier and less expensive than the typical dress of a noblewoman at the time. Sand’s dressing habit enabled her to circulate more freely in Paris than most of her female contemporaries, and gave her increased access to venues from which women were often barred — even women of her social standing. Another scandalous habit was Sand's smoking tobacco in public.
Her most widely used quote is "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”