Two men absconded with a 19th-century French Romantic painting from an East Side art gallery a few blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday in a daring daylight robbery.

According to police, the two men entered the Adam Williams Fine Art Ltd. gallery at 50 E. 78th St. at about 11:15 a.m. One of them distracted the gallery manager, a 60-year-old woman, while the other wandered around the store unsupervised. Both men then left the gallery suddenly, and the art dealer then found that the painting, an untitled 18-inch-by-14-inch portrait by Theodore Chasseriau, painted circa 1851, had been removed from a viewing room in the rear area of the gallery. Sources said the painting was worth more than $1 million; police said the actual value of the painting has not been determined.

Witnesses described the suspects as black males, both over 30 years old, one 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing about 160 lbs., wearing a tan wool overcoat and dark slacks, the other 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing about 180 lbs., wearing a black ski jacket and a dark shirt. Police are asking anyone with information to cal the Crimestoppers hotline at 800-577-TIPS.

The owner of the gallery, Adam Williams, was on a business trip and could not be reached for comment.

Chasseriau was a French painter born on the island of Santo Domingo in 1819. He studied at the studio of Jean Auguste Dominque Ingres, another famous French Romantic painter, when he was 11 years old. He specialized in portraits and historical pieces. Chasseriau died in 1856. His most famous work was the mural in the Court of Accounts at the Palais d’Orsay in Paris of allegorical scenes of war and peace, painted between 1844 and 1848. It was destroyed by fire in 1871.