Madame Lefranc Painting a Portrait of her Husband Charles Lefranc:A Miniature by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Magnus OlaussonDirector of Collections and the Swedish National Portrait Gallery

Art Bulletin of

NationalmuseumStockholm

Volume OM

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Items in the Acquisitions section are listedalphabetically by artists’ names, except in the caseof applied arts items, which are listed in order oftheir inventory numbers. Measurements are incentimetres – Height H, Breadth B, Depth D,Length L, Width W, and Diameter Diam.– except for those of drawings and prints, whichare given in millimetres.

Cover IllustrationAlexander Roslin (NTNUÓNTVP), The Artist and hisWife Marie Suzanne Giroust Portraying HenrikWilhelm Peill, NTST. Oil on canvas, NPN ñ VUKR cm.Donated by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum,Sophia Giesecke Fund, Axel Hirsch Fundand Mr Stefan Persson and Mrs Denise Persson.Nationalmuseum, åã TNQNK

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PhotographsNatinalmuseum Photographic Studio/LinnAhlgren, Erik Cornelius, Anna Danielsson,Cecilia Heisser, Bodil Karlsson, Per-Åke Persson,Sofia Persson and Hans Thorwid.

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Photo Credits© Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig(p. NQ)© The Gothenburg Museum of Art/HosseinSehatlou (p. NU)© Malmö Art Museum/Andreas Rasmusson(p. OO)© Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York (p. OV)© RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre,Paris/Hervé Lewandowski (p. PMF© The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles(Fig. QI p. PN)© RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre,Paris/René-Gabriel Ojéda (Fig. RI p. PN)© Guilhem Scherf (p. PO)© Bridgeman/Institute of Arts, Detroit (p. PP)© Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris/Jean Tholance(p. PQ)© RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Paris(p. PR)© Accademia Nazionale di San Luca,Rome/Mauro Coen (Figs, SI NM and NO,pp. NNQÓNNS)© Mikael Traung (Fig. T, p. NNQ)© Stockholm City Museum (p. NOP)http://www.stockholmskallan.se/Soksida/Post/?nid=319© Stockholm City Museum/Lennart afPetersens (p. NOQ)© http://www.genealogi.se/component/mtree/soedermanland/eskilstuna/a_zetherstroem_/22850?Itemid=604 (p. NOR)© http://www.genealogi.se/component/mtree/bohuslaen/marstrand/robert-dahlloefs-atelier/22851?Itemid=604 (p. NOT)

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f å éêÉ JoÉîçäìí á çå~êó France,women artists were rarely found within thepower centre of art, the Royal Academy ofPainting and Sculpture in Paris. From themid NUth century to the Academy’s aboli-tion in NTVP, only five women were electedas members. Despite this, the male powerelite felt so threatened that, in NTTM, a deci-sion was taken to formalise the unwrittenrule limiting the number of female acade-micians at any one time to four. Conse-quently, there was an unusually long delay inadmitting two of themost prominent womenartists of the period, Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun(NTRRÓNUQO) and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard(NTQVÓNUMP). Finally though, in NTUP, acombination of artistic virtuosity and royalpatronage cleared the way for their election.Vigée-Lebrun was favoured by Queen Marie-Antoinette, while Labille-Guiard counted theking’s aunts among her patrons. At the sametime, the two were each other’s rivals,though with slightly different specialitiesand circles of clients. Both of them workedin pastels and oils, but Labille-Guiard alsoemerged early on as a portrait miniaturist.

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Madame Lefranc Painting a Portrait of her Husband Charles Lefranc:A Miniature by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Magnus OlaussonDirector of Collections and the Swedish National Portrait Gallery

Fig. N Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (NTQVÓNUMP),Madame Lefranc Painting a Portrait of her

Husband Charles Lefranc, NTTV.Watercolour and gouache on ivory,

Diam. SKS cm, ormolu mounting.Purchase: Hjalmar and Anna Wicander Fund.

Nationalmuseum, åãÄ OSORK

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP

At the age of OR, Adélaïde Labille-Guiardwas one of the first female artists to pub-licly exhibit a portrait miniature. This wasat the Salon de Saint Luc in NTTQ, where,with evident pride, she presented a self-portrait. The choice of art form was strate-gic. It was possible to make a living fromportrait miniatures, painting them re-quired little space, and, as with pastels,there were no strong smells involved.What is more, they were quick to produce.Labille-Guiard’s teacher was a neighbourof her father’s fashion shop, the Swissenamellist François-Elié Vincent. Admit-tedly, none of his work has been identi-fied, but we can be fairly sure that it con-sisted of enamels reproducing paintingsby the great portraitists of the day. Theneed for such miniatures was linked, notleast, to perhaps the most exclusive formof official gift at this time, gold boxes bear-

and Sculpture, Labille-Guiard basicallygave up painting portraits in this format. Bythen, she had attracted pupils such asMarie-Gabrielle Capet and Marie-Thérèsede Noireterre. It now fell to their lot to turnher portraits into miniatures, all to satisfythe varying wishes of her customers.

Quite apart from Labille-Guiard’s altru-ism in helping less well-to-do female art stu-dents, she no doubt also appreciated theadvantages in having them copy her por-traits in a small format. We know of severalminiatures by Marie-Gabrielle Capet in par-ticular, reproducing portraits painted byher teacher. Others are to be seen more asvariations, as with Capet’s NTVT miniatureof the Comtesse de Genlis (Fig. O), which inturn alluded to Labille-Guiard’s portrait ofthe same sitter from NTVM (now in the LosAngeles County Museum).

Unlike her teacher, Marie-GabrielleCapet remained unmarried. For the rest ofher life, she was to be part of AdélaïdeLabille-Guiard’s household, even after thelatter was remarried to fellow artistFrançois-André Vincent. The family, as thearchetype of the artistic workshop, is cen-tral to an understanding of the role ofwomen artists, and especially of those activeas miniaturists. They were dependent fortheir position on their husbands or fathers.The degree of independence or evenemancipation which they enjoyed was en-tirely contingent on their status within thefamily and on the workings of the market.In that sense, the household was a produc-tion unit comprising different specialistsand capable of meeting the ever-changingwishes of customers. The interesting thingin the case of Labille-Guiard was that she, asa woman, headed the family studio andtook only female pupils under her wing.

The acquisition of this spectacularwork by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, madepossible by funding from the Hjalmar andAnna Wicander Foundation, fills an impor-tant gap in the Nationalmuseum’s world-famous collection of miniatures. At thesame time, Madame Lefranc Painting the Por-trait of her Husband Charles Lefranc is testa-ment to an age in which women wereemerging in earnest as significant artistsand, in the field of miniature painting, fi-nally became the leading exponents.

ing a portrait of the monarch or othermembers of the royal family. Public com-missions abounded, creating considerabledemand for royal portraits in miniature.Private clients, too, often wanted versionsin a smaller format. In Labille-Guiard’spre-Revolutionary output, we thus findseveral examples of such work.

Five years after her debut, Adélaïde La-bille-Guiard produced an unusually inter-esting portrait miniature of Madame LefrancPainting the Portrait of her Husband CharlesLefranc (Fig. N). The work is of interest forits subject alone, in that it shows a woman,albeit an amateur, in the role of an artist.Labille-Guiard was previously unrepresent-ed in the collections of the Nationalmuse-um, which has now been able to acquireone of her very rare miniatures. One rea-son for their rarity is that, four years afterbeing elected to the Academy of Painting

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Fig. O Marie-Gabrielle Capet (NTSNÓNUNU), Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest de St-Aubin (NTQSÓNUPN), marriedComtesse de Genlis. Purchase: Hjalmar and Anna Wicander Fund. Nationalmuseum, åãÄ ORSNK

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP