Contemporary with these were some female artists who painted in the manner of Greuze; as Constance Mayer, afterward a disciple and friend of Prudhon; Madame Elie, and Philiberte Ledoux; the first well known for her portraits, the latter for her scenes and child-pictures. We may mention, in passing, Madame Villers, whose numerous works were marked by truth and pleasing expression. One of her pieces, “A Child asleep in a Cradle,” carried away by a flood, while a faithful dog plunges in to save it, with eager expression, is very striking and graceful.
Regnault, the rival of David, had the honor of many more female scholars. One of them, Madame Anzon, painted large pictures in 1793. Sophie Guillemard sent to the Exhibition, in 1802, “Alcibiades and Glycerion,” and, two years later, her “Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife.” After this, Claire Robineau produced historical pictures and landscapes, and Rosalie de Lafontaine her delicate genre-paintings. Aurore Etienne de Lafond and Eugénie Brun obtained medals for their master-pieces in miniature-painting. Madame Lenoir painted Sage’s portrait, and was much esteemed. A host of names might be added, were a mere list desirable.
The disciples and imitators of David also numbered women among their pupils. Drolling’s daughter, Louise Adéone, studied under his direction; her first husband was Pagnierre the architect. Fanny Robert was trained in Girodet’s atelier; Abel de Pujol taught Adrienne Marie Louise Grandpierre Deverzy; and Gérard finished some of David’s scholars, as Eléonore Godefroy, who exhibited portraits and copies from her master after 1810, and Louise de Montferrier, Comtesse de Hugo, whose genre-paintings were brought to the Exhibition nine years later. Madame von Butlar, of Dresden, studied under this master in 1823.
These were the latest masters in serious historical painting till Robert Fleury and Léon Cogniet, who could perhaps boast the greatest number of gifted female pupils. We should mention here Jeanne Elizabeth Gabiou, the wife of Antoine Denis Chaudet, born in 1767, and dying about 1830. She was a pupil of her husband, and painted “A Child Teaching a Dog to Read,” with many charming little pieces of the kind; excelling, too, as a portrait-painter. The empress bought one of her pictures.
The majority of French women artists of this period busied themselves with portraits. Flower-painting was also much in vogue, and miniature and porcelain painting furnished continual employment for female industry and talent.
In modeling and sculpture France has produced some excellent artists since the commencement of the present century.
MARIE D’ORLEANS.
One in particular, of illustrious station and royal blood, too early snatched away by death, has conferred lustre upon the whole class by whom the difficult and delicate art has been cultivated.
Marie of Orleans, the daughter of Louis Philippe, is thus mentioned in Mrs. Lee’s “Sketches.”
“She was born at Palermo in 1813, and was married in 1837 to Duke Alexander of Wurtemberg. Her health was impaired, and she went to Pisa in the hope of recovering, but died there in 1839. Her statue of the Maid of Orleans is of the size of life, and is placed at Versailles; it is full of animation and spirit. But her last work, an angel in white marble, seems to be the result of inspiration. It is in the chapel of Sablonville, on the sarcophagus of her brother. It may be deeply lamented that the Princess Marie did not live to give additional proofs of the capability of her sex for works of sculpture. Her early death frustrated the efforts of a genius which bade fair to compete with the graceful forms of Canova or Flaxman.”