1768 -1826 · Paris, Revolution and Empire

Neoclassical drawing, psychological perspective and public ambition make Marie-Guillemine Benoist a major portraitist around the Revolution and the Empire.

Marie-Guillemine de Laville-Leroux, known as Marie-Guillemine Benoist, was born in Paris in 1768 and died there in 1826. She entered the studio of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in 1781, then joined with her sister Marie-Élisabeth the teaching of Jacques-Louis David. This double training unites the elegance of worldly portraiture with the rigor of neoclassical drawing. Benoist exhibited at the Salon of 1791 and very early sought to go beyond the decorative subjects then generally reserved for women. Innocence between Vice and Virtue translated this ambition into a moral composition of great style. His most famous work, presented at the Salon of 1800 under the title Portrait of a Black Woman and today known as Portrait of Madeleine, places a seated, monumental and attentive black woman in the codes of prestigious portraiture. The direct gaze, the white dress, the red belt and the light background affirm both the dignity of the model and the virtuosity of the painter in a context marked by the abolition of 1794 then the reestablishment of slavery in 1802. Under the Empire, Benoist received commissions for official portraits and opened a workshop for women. After 1815, she gradually abandoned her career so as not to compromise that of her husband, who had become a state councilor under the Restoration. Her rediscovery restored an artist capable of negotiating institutions, politics and professional autonomy. The "Marie-Guillemine Benoist" selection notably compares Self-portrait copying the Belisarius and the child and Young woman in a landscape. His reading favors composition.

Benoist uses the codes of the great portrait to make visible what his time relegated: an irreducible presence, a look and a dignity.