Peintres Femmes : Naissance D'un Combat, 1780-1830

Exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 3 March - 4 July 2021

This catalogue brings together works and documents that show how - that is to say, under what conditions and according to what strategies - female painters had to learn their trade, enter the art scene, build their careers and forge their public persona.

By focusing on a period, 1780-1830, when in France and in Europe there was a proliferation of renowned women artists - Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Anne Vallayer-Coster, Marguerite Gérard, Gabrielle Capet, Marie-Geneviève Bouliard, Marie-Victoire Lemoine, Rose Ducreux, Constance Mayer, Angelika Kauffmann, Anna Dorothea Therbusch, etc. - the book sheds light on the conditions under which women were able to become painters. - The book sheds light on the historical, cultural and social conditions that have inscribed in the designation "women painters" a paradox, the idea that these two terms could never be one.