This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky.

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In December of 1788, the French painter Jacques-Louis-Dav David completed a large and impressive double portrait

of the married couple, scientist Antoine Lavoisier, and his wife, Marie Anne. Today, Antoine

Levoisier is celebrated as the man who helped discover the role that oxygen plays in combustion.

In fact, he was the one who gave oxygen its name.

Though Lavoisier wasn't the first to discover the law of conservation of mass,

the law that in a fixed system, the mass of everything inside will remain the same and matter can't be created

or destroyed. He proved it in a set of experiments and popularized it. In France, it's still known

as Lavoisier's law. Antoine Lavoisier was an incredibly wealthy and successful man, and he's a massively important figure in the history of science.

So it only seems fitting that he should have a massive portrait. And it is really big. You can still see it today at the Met in New York City, almost nine feet high. In the portrait,

Lavoisier is sitting at a table covered in a red velvet tablecloth. He's at work on papers,

a quill perched in his right hand. His wife, Marie Ann, leans casually over his shoulder. She's wearing a simple

chemist dress with blue ribbons, and she's at the center of the portrait. While Levoiscier is

looking up at his wife, Marie Ann looks directly out at the viewer, or maybe at the painter.

Marie-Anne knew David well.

He actually taught her painting, which came in handy, because Marie-Anne was invaluable to her

husband's work.

She drew scientific diagrams for him that were published alongside his writings.

She learned English so she could help translate new scientific works for him,

took notes, and was a constant presence in the laboratory.

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