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Part 1
LaVille-Leroulx-Benoist's self-portrait (above) depicts the artist producing a copy of a study of David's Belasarius Begging for Alms. Additionally, she classicises her appearance with her attire and loosely bound hair. Interestingly, her Portrait of a Lady (below) from the same year shows a transition between the softer style that she had learned under her first teacher and the more Davidian style. The self-portrait, however, conveys a thorough willingness to adopt the ways of David's atelier.Although not much information exists about Duchosal, it is known that she possibly attempted history painting while studying under David. The only evidence related to her is a portrait of controversial attribution which depicts a young woman--most likely Duchosal, according to Vivian Cameron,(6) Philippe Bordres, and Alain Chevalier(7) --producing a detail of the mourning Camilla from David's Oath of the Horatii. While this small piece of information does not disclose much about the artist or the sitter, it does draw an interesting parallel to LaVille-Leroulx-Benoist's self-portrait. Both portraits depict women pupils reproducing their teacher's well-known history paintings. At this time, women were largely discouraged from this so-called "masculine" genre, which required knowledge of Classical literature and, more importantly, human anatomy. However, both women are shown in the process of producing copies of history paintings. In the art world, it was a common belief that women lacked the ability and imagination to produce original art and that copying their teachers' work for such purposes as separate commissions was appropriate.(8) But, as can be seen with the example of LaVille-Leroulx-Benoist's early career, David's women pupils produced more than just copies, so why did at least two of them produce these portraits? According to an extract from the Journal de l'Institut historique quoted by Cameron, David "was never a dogmatic teacher(9) and therefore would not have required that his pupils include his work in their (self) portraits. This does not, however, eliminate the fact that such works can be read as indirect promotions of the teacher, as well. Cameron proceeds to point out that they serve as evidence that David encouraged his women pupils to aspire to the "highest" genre of the artistic hierarchy.(10) Whether they may have been understood as promoting him to the pre-Revolutionary public as an enlightened master or to aspiring women artists as a teacher who would not limit them to traditional "feminine" genres, the voluntary execution of these portraits suggest a celebration of the teacher as well as the pupil.
The copyright of the article Some Reasons behind the (Self-)Portrait (Part 2) in Women Painters is owned by . Permission to republish Some Reasons behind the (Self-)Portrait (Part 2) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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