Our assumptions guide the way we think about others and make decisions without reason. They shape the way we view others, taking what we think we know about someone and creating it as fact in our heads. In 1801 Marie Denise Villers painted Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (1786-1868). However, it wasn’t until 1996 that Villers herself was named the artist of this very piece. Jacques Louis David and Constance Charpentier were two artists who were said to have painted Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes by critics and scholars. What was it about the painting that led people to believe that it belonged to Jacques Louis David or Constance Charpentier? Was it the brush strokes? Or the tenebrism contrast of the light coming in through the broken window? Was it the eyes of the subject that seemed to be looking at us? What assumptions were made to attribute this painting to a successful male artist for years before we knew that this was really painted by an unnoticed female artist? The following paintings include works from these three artists: Marie Denise Villers, Jacques Louis David, and Constance Charpentier. With these side by side, we are able to compare compositions and subject matter of the paintings to see similarities and differences. Maybe we can see why scholars assumed this girl belonged to someone else before arriving at its rightful owner.
Marie Denise Villers, Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (1786-1868), 1801, oil on canvas, 63 ½” x 50 ⅝”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From www.metmuseum.org
Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes sits on a chair and is watching us, just as we are watching her. Her eyes create a straight line right to us, holding our gaze. Her hair is golden and tied up in a bun leaving soft ringlets dangling down to frame her face. She holds a paint brush in one hand and a canvas is held up by the other. As the light surrounds the girl, the value creates dimension and depth that accentuates the girl from the background, emphasizing her as the subject of the painting.
Jacques Louis David, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) and Marie Anne Lavoisier (Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze, 1758-1836), 1788, oil on canvas, 102 ¼” x 76 ⅝”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From www.metmuseum.org
Jacques Louis David, General Etienne-Maurice Gerard (1773-1852), 1816, oil on canvas, 77 ⅝” x 53 ⅝”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From www.metmuseum.org
In this portrait of General Etienne-Maurice Gerard stands a man who sets his gaze, again, on the viewer. The implied line of his gaze fixes our eyes on him as the subject of the painting. He is dressed in uniform with his hat in one hand and letters in the other. The background shows a glimpse of a landscape behind a bright red curtain. The composition resembles Viller’s portrait, centering the man in the middle of the painting.
Constance Marie Charpentier, Melancholy, 1801, oil on canvas 130 x 165 cm, Musee de Picardie, Amiens, France. From www.wikipedia.org
In Melancholy, Constance Charpentier paints a portrait of a woman sitting on the ground alongside water. The woman looks down as if she is contemplating something. Her hair is pulled back in a bun leaving pieces out around her face. Her dress clings to the shape of her body and collects the light along with her skin. The paleness of the woman creates contrast with the dark background of the woods behind her. Although the composition is different of that of Viller’s, the style and subject matter holds the similarities.
Marie Denise Villers, A Young Woman Seated by a Window, 1800-1801, oil on canvas, 26” x 18 ½” , exhibited at Salon of 1801, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts in 2005. From www.wikipedia.org
A Young Woman Seated by a Window depicts several similarities of Viller’s Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes. The portrait shows a young woman sitting by a window with a flower in her hair. Balanced in the middle of the painting sets her as the subject. She has blonde curly hair that is pinned up allowing a few strands to hang down. The sunlight is captured in her white dress as her eyes are fixed on the viewer.
Marie Densie Villers, Study of a Woman, 1802, oil on canvas, 57 ½” x 44 ⅞”, The Louvre Museum, Paris, France. From https://collections.louvre.fr/en/
In Study of a Woman, Villers shows a woman clothed in black with material draping across her face. Through the lace we see her gaze, again, fixed on the viewer as she looks straight through the painting just like Viller’s prior work. An open landscape stretches across the background with green mountains and trees. The woman is bending down to tie up her shoe as her foot rests on a bench with a flower and her gloves.
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