It was popular, both with the public and the government, and was an area to which Prud'hon added his own personal talents: talents of vigor and vivacity added to that which tends to be static and dry and in addition special elements of melancholy and subdued grace which flavor all his major works.In 1805 Prud'hon met and took into his studio Mlle. Constance Mayer, a former pupil of the recently de