Madame de La Porte was a delicate beauty during the pleasure-loving age of 18th century French nobility.
In Madame's exquisite portrait by the renowned court painter Jean-Marc Nattier, her skin is luminously pale, her eyes overbright and she bears what the director of Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Belinda Hanrahan, dubs "Doris Day cheeks".
Her lips are posy red, her powdered hair is worn in soft waves adorned by flowers in the French fashion before high hair became all the rage.
An extravagant blue sash of taffeta crosses her breast to accentuate her petite waist, dressed in gold embroidered satin.
Madame was once thought to be a comtesse, Ms Hanrahan said, but has since been identified as the wife of the still-life painter Henri-Horace Roland de La Porte.
Ms Hanrahan would often admire the portrait at the Art Gallery of NSW, where she worked until seven years ago as director of marketing.
"She just shines through and I'm really looking forward to sitting in front of it again - that amazing feminity that comes across and the technique, Nattier's wonderful use of colour."
Madame de La Porte brings a touch of Versailles to Gymea's Hazelhurst gallery in an exhibition of European old masters on loan from the Art Gallery of NSW.
It's the first occasion so many important European paintings have been shown together outside their permanent home.
The show of 27 works by painters including Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Bernardo Strozzi and Frans Snyders showcases four centuries of European art, from the Renaissance to the more playful rococo art movement, through to neoclassicism and realism.
Subject matter shifts from sweeping biblical epics to gentle landscapes and portraits of the notable and wealthy including James Maitland, the 7th Earl of Lauderdale.
Hazelhurst jumped at the invitation from the Art Gallery's director, Michael Brand, to take these major works temporarily making way for an exhibition of Victorian watercolours.
"These have come off the walls and going to Hazelhurst, this is not the reserve team from storage," Mr Brand said.
"They are significant because they represent the European painting tradition over quite a number of centuries, out of which the early Australian colonial tradition emerges, of course."
Despite the roll-call of European greats inscribed on the building's facade, it wasn't until the 1950s that the Art Gallery of NSW began collecting some of these great European works, assisted by gifts from collectors James Fairfax and William Bowmore.
"Even if you think you are more interested in contemporary art, just stop and look at something, even if you think it's not your cup of tea, because they have so many stories to tell," Mr Brand said. "You can see the European artists in their prime."
Nattier was famous for his paintings of court ladies. He painted Peter the Great, founder of St Petersburg, and Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV.
"[Nattier's Madame de La Porte] looks like a realistic, natural portrait but, of course, it's a strangely artificial concoction too, a woman dolled up in court finery," Mr Brand said.
"It's a really interesting cultural creation that you get to stand in front of in Sydney and now in Hazelhurst - all those cultural doors and windows."
Said Ms Hanrahan: "We travel around the world and go to the major galleries if we are in London or Paris, but do we do it when [these works] are in our home town? Everyone in NSW owns these works."
European Old Masters: 16th-19th Century, runs from September 28 to December 3.
