Marie-Guillemine Benoist

Biography

Born from a father civil servant, it is formed by Elisabeth Vigée Brown the starting from 1781 and between with the workshop of Jacques-Louis David in 1786, like her sister Marie-Elisabeth Laville-Leroux.

In 1784, it meets the poet Charles-Albert Demoustier, who will take as a starting point it for his character of Emilie in his Lettres in Emilie on mythology (1801).

She exposes for the first time to the Living room in 1791 a table inspired of mythology Psyché bidding her farewell to her family. Its table Innocence between the virtue and the defect , realized at the same time, under cover of a mythological subject, reflects its feminist convictions, the defect there being represented under the features of a man whereas it is it traditionally under those of a woman.

She marries in 1793 the lawyer Pierre-Vincent Benoist.

Towards 1795, it gives up the traditional subjects for the painting of kind and is released gradually from the influence of David.

It continues its career of painter successfully and exposes to the Living room of 1800 the Portrait of a Negress , who assoit immediately her reputation. Only six years after the Abolition of slavery, he is regarded as a proclamation of the emancipation of the blacks and feminism. This table will be bought by Louis XVIII for the French State in 1818.

It gains in 1804 a gold medal with the Living room and obtains a pension of the government. It at that time opens a studio reserved exclusively to the women with whom it teaches painting to them.

It receives a commission of Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, to carry out his portrait for the town of Ghent.

With the Restoration, her husband the count Benoist, convinced royalist, is named with the Council of State and it must much to its regret to cease painting and exposing its paintings whereas it is at the top of its career.

Some saw in it a spirit in advance on its time, its aspirations of emancipation and its talent having been choked by the weight of the company, in spite of the promises of the Révolution.

Works

Psyché bidding its farewell has its family (1791)
Innocence between the virtue and the defect
Portrait of a Negress (1800, Musée of Louvre)
Portrait of Napoleon (1804, court of Ghent)
Portait of the Marshal Brown (1805, destroyed; a copy is with the Museum of the Château of Versailles)
Portrait of Pauline Borghèse (1807, Musée of the Castle of Versailles)
Portrait of Marie-Elects, large duchess of Tuscany (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Lucques)
Portrait of the empress Marie-Louise (Château of Fontainebleau)
the reading of the Bible , (1810, municipal museum, Louviers)
the Consultation or the Monologuist of good-ventures , Saintes municipal Musée.

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