French artist Henriette Lorimier portrays herself in the popular role she held among high society of France as a respected painter of portraits and anecdotal genre. Indeed, in this self-portrait made around 1805, the artist holds a palette with one hand and charcoal with the other. The painting imposes itself on the viewer in an interior that testifies to her social success. She wears a burnt-orange velvet dress, thus offering a glimpse of fashion of the time; the waist, very high, is underlined by medallions in an antique style. With the tools of her trade in her hands, she sketches another of her paintings, “La Chèvre nourricière,” a critical success at the Salon of 1804. Lorimier successfully shows us her anecdotal genre work and proudly presents her talent as a portraitist. Around 1800, more and more women participated in French artistic life, moved by the frequent desire to play a role outside the family sphere and to escape the restricted status pushed by the misogyny of the revolutionaries. Despite the action of certain political figures like the Marquis de Condorcet, the Revolution did not give substantial civil rights to women, and they were still not equal to men in the law or society. However, at the end of the 18th century in France, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Anne Vallayer-Coster, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard had managed to enter some painting academies and had acquired independence as well as fame linked to their own name and not to that of their husbands -- these three women bear their maiden name followed by their marital name. Then artists, such as Henriette Lorimier, of the early 19th century, still influenced by the freedoms their elders had gained to freely exhibit at the Salons, dared to create works which illustrated their skills. Still judged in a spirit inherited from the Enlightenment, the female artist, although often dismissed by critics, managed until the 1820s to remain on the artistic scene in Paris.

Autoportrait by Henriette Lorimier (French) - Oil on canvas / 1804-1806 - Musée Magnin (Dijon, France) #womeninart #art #womanartist #artwork #portraitofawoman #fineart #womensart #femaleartist #HenrietteLorimier #oilpainting #selfportrait #MuséeMagnin #romanticism #FrenchArt #FrenchArtist #bskyart

A reluctant bride, presumably coming from an affluent family as evidenced by her rather opulent bridal dress, sits in a parlor room before the wedding ceremony. In true Toulmouche style, all the women in the painting are dressed lavishly. The woman to the left of the bride in a silk grey dress with a fur-trimmed brown dolman, and the women to the right wears a burnt orange velvet fur-trimmed dress. The textiles in the background are no less carefully rendered. Despite the magnificent play of color and texture, the most striking aspect of this painting is the bride’s direct gaze at the viewer. Her focus is clear and despite the fact that she is comforted by the two women, she reacts to neither gesture. One is holding her hand; while the other with the shawl, who seemingly just arrived, is kissing her on the forehead. She does not respond to the sentimentality of the gestures and her gaze is defiant. A demonstration of resistance to her dilemma – that of an arranged marriage, a common occurrence during the 19th century. The bride is juxtaposed by the young girl in the background, who at her tender age and naïveté, still considers marriage as a future dream. She tries on the bride’s flower crown, dreamily imagining her own future wedding.

La Fiancée Hésitante by Auguste Toulmouche (French) - Oil on canvas / 1866 - Musée Magnin (Dijon, France) #womeninart #painting #art #oilpainting #toulmouche #frenchartist #bride #fiancee #MuséeMagnin #fineart #womensart #artwork #weddingday #brides #fiance #artoftheday #bsky.art #viralart #fiancée