Self-portrait as an allegory of Painting

The acquisition of this painting by Marie-Victoire Lemoine has enabled us to better understand the career of this eldest of three sisters, all of whom were artists. Although she was a pupil of the history painter Ménageot, her art is more akin to that of Vigée-Lebrun. In fact, the Lebrun couple owned the house where Ménageot lived, and it is highly likely that Lemoine benefited from Vigée-Lebrun's teaching, as she took on pupils from 1776 onwards. In 1796, Marie-Victoire Lemoine exhibited a portrait of herself in 1789 in the studio of her young teacher at her first Salon (New York, Metropolitan museum of art). Under Vigée-Lebrun's guidance, Lemoine built up a reputation and contacts at Court, which led to her being commissioned to paint the portrait of the Princesse de Lamballe, which she exhibited in 1779 at the Salon de la Correspondance, a small exhibition open to all artists. Several commissions followed, and it was certainly in this context that she produced the painting in the Musée d'Orléans, whose last digit of the date has been partially erased. The subject remains ambiguous. The woman bears all the hallmarks of both an allegory of painting and a self-portrait, and it is difficult to know what the artist's intention was. Its proximity to Vigée-Lebrun'sAutoportrait au chapeau de paille, first exhibited at the Salon de la Correspondance in 1782, suggests that it was produced quickly in the years that followed. Marie-Victoire Lemoine had a very discreet career, exhibiting at the Salon only from 1796 to 1814, although it was open to all artists from 1791. Some thirty works are known today, mainly portraits and genre scenes in the style of Angelika Kauffmann, providing a glimpse into the career of a woman artist at the end of the 18th century.