Young Woman Drawing

(Portrait of Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes)

by Marie-Denise Villers

Fall 2020

For the Women in the Visual Arts Course at Arizona State University

In the 1801 Salon of Paris, a portrait of a young woman drawing made its debut. She sits on a chair draped in red fabric in a barren room with a cracked window through which a couple stands on a veranda. Dressed in a simple white dress with a pink rose sash around her waist and her somewhat curly hair tied up in a loose bun, she stares at the viewer as though we are the subject for her drawing. We can tell that she is an artist by the drawing board with paper that rests between her thighs and her left hand, and the drawing tool in her right. The light coming from the window both back-lights her and gives her a soft, yet slim, side lighting. The dramatic, yet soft lighting gives her a soft glow and provides soft shadows. She appears elegant, yet she is hunched over her drawing in an almost adolescent pose.

As she looks at us, the viewer, she seems to be focused, though it is difficult to truly tell what her expression is. Bridget Quinn notes that “She is mysterious. She might be called the Mona Lisa of the Met.”1 With her mysterious expression, it is difficult for the viewer to look away. We question what she is looking at, thinking, and drawing, and who she is. The portrait is that of Mademoiselle Charlotte du Val d’Ognes. But who painted her?

When this portrait first arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1917, it was, and still is, considered a great masterpiece that many visitors and scholars have fallen in love with. Germaine Greer states, “It is arguable that the portrait of Mademoiselle Charlotte du Val d’Ognes… is the finest example of the neo-classical portrait.”2 This great work has been thought to be the work of Jacques Louis David, a great artist of this style and prominent painter “from the 1780s until his exile in 1816.”3 However, in 1951, a Met curator, Charles Sterling, discovered that this portrait was really shown in the 1801 Salon, which can be seen in an engraving of that Salon. Here was the problem, David had boycotted the Salon during this time, so how could it be one of his paintings?

It was believed to be a painting by David because it was very much his style and was equivalent to his great works as a male artist. In fact, it was believed that when it first debuted the family that had the portrait had told everyone that it was a David to get more recognition and money from it. This was common during this time, as was female artists following the styles of their more famous male contemporaries. And as soon as it was found to be a done by a woman, it was demeaned, as the descriptions went from those hailing its “perfect picture, unforgettable”4 to its “very evident charms, …cleverly concealed weaknesses,… a thousand subtle artifices, all seem to reveal the feminine spirit.”5

Art, like much of the world during this time was classified as that which was “male” or “masculine” and that which was “female” or “feminine.” And what was feminine was considered a lesser form than that created by men and could only be created by women. Sterling’s comment had said that everything that was wrong with this painting, all its weaknesses, are due to it being painted by a woman, a common theory amongst art critics and historians for most of art’s history until more recently.

The accepted misattribution6 led way to its reattribution7 to Madame Constance Marie Charpentier, who had shown a couple of portraits during the 1801 Salon, including one of her famous paintings, Melancholy. Mme. Charpentier was one of three female pupils of David, so it would definitely explain the similar style to David’s work. In the 1801 Salon, there was very little on this portrait of Mlle. Charlotte and a very brief description of Mme. Charpentier’s second portrait. It also did not help that there were a lot of portraits of women during this Salon. To add even more confusion, there were also a lot more women artists presenting their work during this time, which did not last, and achievements never materialized for most women artists. Quinn found that, “By 1804, Napoleon has shut down every avenue of official education and exhibition for women artists in France. Not until the end of the century would women be admitted to the prestigious École des Beaux-Art.”8

The thought that the portrait of Mlle. Charlotte was not a David and, in fact, done by a woman was widely accepted. Though for a while many believed it to be the work of Mme. Charpentier, there were actually doubts, as it “has undergone a series of suggested reattributions – to artists from François Gérard and Pierre Jeuffrain to Marie-Denise Villers.”9 In 1995, another curator at the Met, Margaret Oppenheimer also proved that the portrait of Mlle. Charlotte was painted by a woman, and she also proved that it was painted by Marie-Denise Villers. Oppenheimer actually found on deeper study, that less than fifteen percent of submissions to the 1801 Salon were by women, which led her to Marie-Denise Villers, a lesser known artist.

Later another art historian, Ann Higonnet, actually found the studio where Villers’ portrait of Mlle. Charlotte was painted: “It is a gallery of the Louvre itself. An atelier dedicated to female art students, where they could receive instruction (separate and unequal) apart from male colleagues.”10 This was common, as women were still not accepted into many of the art classes that were deemed masculine and unfit for women. It was known that Villers and Mlle. Charlotte both studied at these studios in the Louvre galleries at the same time. And it was also already known from an early point that the portrait was that of Mlle. Charlotte. The title of the painting only changed for a brief time to Young Woman Drawing when there were some doubts, but later it was verified to be that of Mlle. Charlotte.

Little is known of Villers, also called “Nisa.” Her maiden name was Lemoine and her sisters were also painters (Marie Victoire Lemoine and Maire Elisabeth Gabiou). A student of Anne Louis Giroudet-Trioson, she studied the styles presented by her more accomplished contemporaries, including David. When she painted the portrait of Mlle. Charlotte, she “had already been married five years when she painted the portrait of her fellow art student, Charlotte du Val d’Ognes.”11 Her last work dates to 1814, and she died seven years later.

Villers had painted very little compared to that of Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, prominent women artists of the same time. One of her works include A Young Woman Seated by a Window (1801), which has a similar hunched over posture, white dress, and hairstyle. Seen as her greatest painting, how did the portrait of Mlle. Charlotte become her greatest work? Professor Alfred Moir points out to Quinn the problem with connoisseurship: “It doesn’t take into account the artist waking up on the wrong side of the bed… It doesn’t consider the really shitty day… Later it would occur to me, what about the opposite? The Day When Everything Goes Right. The Fucking Excellent Day.”12 Villers’ portrait of Mlle. Charlotte, was her excellent day; the day everything went right.

It is then no wonder why the portrait of Mademoiselle Charlotte du Val d’Ognes painted by Marie-Denise Villers is still considered a masterpiece in the neo-classical style and loved by many visitors to the Met. She is after all “the Mona Lisa of the Met”13 with her gaze fixed upon the viewer.

Bibliography

Art, The Metropolitan Museum of. 2020. Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (Young Woman Drawing). https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437903?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=young+woman+drawing&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=19.

Chadwick, Whitney. 2012. Women, Art, and Society: Fifth Edition. Thames & Hudson world of art.

Greer, Germaine. 2001. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work. London; New York: Tauris Parke Paperbacks.

Quinn, Bridget. March 2017. Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in that Order). Chronicle Books.

Sterling, Charles. January 1952. A Fine “David” Reattributed. Vol. 9. 5 vols. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin.

Tsaleza, Anastasia. May 2020. Five Women Artists Whose Works Were Misattributed to Men. Daily Art Magazine.

Notes

1 Quinn, Bridget. Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in that Order). Chronicle Books. Mar. 2017. Chapter 4: Marie Denise Villers. p. 54

2 Greer, Germaine. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. 2001. p. 275

3 Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Fifth Edition. Thames & Hudson world of art. 2012. p. 25

4 Greer, Germaine. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. 2001. p. 142

5 Sterling, Charles. A Fine “David” Reattributed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. vol. 9, no. 5 (January 1952): p. 132

Greer, Germaine. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. 2001. p. 142

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Fifth Edition. Thames & Hudson world of art. 2012. p. 26

Quinn, Bridget. Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in that Order). Chronicle Books. Mar. 2017. Chapter 4: Marie Denise Villers. p. 51 & 55

6 “Misattribute: to incorrectly indicate the cause, origin, or creator of (something): to attribute wrongly”. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misattribute#:~:text=%3A%20to%20incorrectly%20indicate%20the%20cause%2C%20origin%2C%20or,traditionally%20assigned%20to%20Concord%20clockmakers%20have%20been%20misattributed.

7 “Reattribute: to attribute (something) in a new or different way; especially: to reckon as executed, made, originated, or achieved in a fashion other than was previously attributed.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reattribute

8 Quinn, Bridget. Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in that Order). Chronicle Books. Mar. 2017. Chapter 4: Marie Denise Villers. p. 59

9 Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Fifth Edition. Thames & Hudson world of art. 2012. p. 26

10 Ibid., p. 58

11 Quinn, Bridget. Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in that Order). Chronicle Books. Mar. 2017. Chapter 4: Marie Denise Villers. p. 59

Ibid., p. 52

12 Ibid., p. 54