Je Déclare Vivre De Mon Art Dans L'atelier Des Soeurs Lemoine Et Chaudet

Exhibition at the Fragonard Museum, Grasse, 10 June - 8 October 2023

Enigmatic, as brilliant as they were secretive, the Lemoine sisters, Marie-Victoire (1754-1820), Marie-Élisabeth (1761-1811), Marie-Geneviève (1771-1845) and Marie-Denise (1774-181) and their cousin, Jeanne Élisabeth Gabiou (1767-1832), made their mark on the history of French portraiture at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Daughters of Parisian wigmakers, trained by the best Parisian painters, friends of prominent artists and protected by a myriad of select personalities, these five women painters made their mark on the Parisian art scene solely on the merits of their brushes and their respective emulation.

This catalogue of the exhibition at the Fragonard Museum, which houses the largest collection of paintings by a woman artist of the 18th century, their contemporary Marguerite Gérard, invites us to discover an extraordinary sibling group whose career is as rich as their creations. While their somewhat romantic trajectory sheds original light on their era, the study of their careers also shatters many prejudices about women artists of the revolutionary period.