Marie-Denise Lemoine

Entry by Margaret A. Oppenheimer, 2004

Marie-Denise Villers, née Lemoine, was born in Paris in 1774. Her parents were Charles Lemoine and Marie-Anne Rousselle. In the 1780s and early 1790s, Marie-Denise, known as Nisa, lived with her family in the rue Traversière-Saint-Honoré, near the Palais Royal. She had two sisters who were portrait painters: Marie-Victoire Lemoine (1754-1820) and Marie-Élisabeth Lemoine (dates unknown). The portrait and genre painter Jeanne-Élisabeth Chaudet (1767-1832) was her first cousin. In 1794, Nisa married an architecture student, Michel-Jean-Maximilien Villers. Miniatures signed "Villers" are sometimes considered early works by her, but most date from the 1780s or early 1790s, when she would have been using her maiden name of Lemoine, had she been painting miniatures at all. They are probably the work of a miniaturist named Villers who exhibited at the Salon of 1793. Marie-Denise Villers made her first appearance as an artist at the Paris Salon of the Year VII (1799), where she exhibited three paintings as a pupil of Girodet. She also received lessons and encouragement from François Gérard and Jacques-Louis David. At the 1799 Salon, she was awarded an encouragement of 1500 francs for a portrait said to show a woman painting that was admired by the critics and considered a self-portrait. Unfortunately she may never have received the funds promised. She continued to exhibit at the Salon in 1801, 1802, and 1814, and possibly also in 1800. Perhaps political reasons dictated her absence from the Salons of the First Empire (1804-1812) since her sister, Marie-Victoire Lemoine, did not exhibit either from 1806 through 1812. The Duchess of Angoulême was the subject of Nisa's last publicly exhibited work, a portrait she submitted to the Salon of 1814. Her artistic activity seems to have ceased well before her death in Paris on August 19, 1821. The household inventory drawn up after her death does not mention painting equipment or a studio. Her work was largely forgotten by the end of the nineteenth century, to the point that her Young Woman Drawing (New York, Metropolitan Museum) could be attributed first to Jacques-Louis David and then to Constance Charpentier. In her day, Villers' paintings brought her public acclaim. Several critics commented appreciatively on the portrait for which she received an «encouragement» at the Salon of 1799, and noted the influence of Girodet on her style. They also admired the Étude d'une jeune femme assise sur une fenêtre that she exhibited at the Salon of 1801, praising the graceful and harmonious composition and the beauty of the sitter, who some believed to be the artist herself. Criticisms were mild: the lack of transparency in the sky and trees and in the shadows of the head, the length of the left leg, and a little dryness in the details. Villers was successful again at the Salon of 1802. Her genre painting of Un enfant dans son berceau, entraîné par les eaux de l'inondation du mois de nivôse an X won plaudits from all for its skillful execution and for the touching and ingenious subject. It was engraved by Jean Godefroy and etched by Charles Landon. The Russian Prince Yusupov commissioned a reduction of the work, which was painted for him by Villers in 1810. Villers' Étude de femme d'après nature was also acclaimed by reviewers who noticed that the artist had adopted more fluid contours and more brilliant coloring. This change is clear if we compare the backlighting and pale tonalities of the Metropolitan Museum's Young Woman Drawing, completed by 1801 and possibly as early as 1799, with the bold palette of the Louvre's Étude de femme d'après nature, painted in 1801 or 1802. In both paintings, Villers represented single female figures in a way that blurred the line between portraiture and genre painting, a type of composition that she made her specialty. These "études de femme", as the artist usually called them, incorporated an activity or implied a story (e.g., the cracked window behind the sitter in the Metropolitan's painting). Their popularity with Villers' contemporaries seems fully justified, and they retain their appeal today.

Works

- 1799 (Salon no 344): La Peinture. Painting. Possibly identical with the Young Woman Drawing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and 1801 Salon no 366. [Note: The reviewers seem to have noted only one painting by Villers at the Salon of 1799, but refer to it variously as no 344 and 346 of the livret.]
- 1799 (Salon no 345): Une Bacchante endormie. Painting. Location unknown.
- 1799 (Salon no 346): Un portrait. Painting. Possibly identical with the Young Woman Drawing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and 1801 Salon no 366 [see note above about La Peinture].
- An 9 (1800-1801): Etude d'une jeune femme assise sur une fenêtre (1801 Salon no 364). Oil on canvas. Sold at auction, Versailles, Hôtel des Chevaux-Légers, December 3, 1961, no 8, pl. II, as Portrait de jeune fille au camélia -- Oppenheimer, 1996 (voir infra), p.169, fig.6.
- c.1800: Study for Etude d'une jeune femme assise sur une fenêtre. Oil on canvas. Private collection.
- 1801 (Salon no 365): Etude d'une femme à sa toilette. Painting. Probably identical with Collection d'une collection capitale provenant du cabinet de M. Villers, architecte, composée de tableaux des trois écoles... Par J.B.P. Lebrun. Paris, chez M. Félix et M. Lebrun, 1812, no 119. Location unknown.
- 1801 (Salon no 366): Un portrait. Possibly identical with the Young Woman Drawing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and 1799 Salon no 346 or 344.
- c.1799-1801: Young Woman Drawing, formerly called Portrait of Mlle Charlotte du Val d'Ognes (1801 Salon, possibly no 366). Oil on canvas. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art -- Oppenheimer, 1996 (voir infra), p.166, fig.2.
- 1802 (Salon no 310): Un enfant dans son berceau, entraîné par les eaux de l'inondation du mois de nivôse an X. Painting. Location unknown. Engraved by Jean Godefroy under the title La Fidélité (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale) -- Oppenheimer, 1996 (voir infra), p.174, fig.13. Line etching in Charles Landon, Annales du Musée et de l'Ecole Moderne des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1803, IV, pl.16.
- An 10 (1801-1802): Une étude de femme d'après nature, also known as Portrait of Madame Soustras (1802 Salon no 311). Oil on canvas. Paris, Louvre -- Oppenheimer, 1996 (voir infra), p.165, fig.1.
- 1810: Un enfant dans son berceau, entraîné par les eaux de l'inondation du mois de nivôse an X. Painting. Reduction of the 1802 Salon painting. Russia, Arkhangelskoyé Museum-Estate.
- Before 1813: Une petite Fille blonde, tenant une corbeille de jonc remplie de fleurs; figure de grandeur naturelle, à mi-corps; elle est vêtue d'une robe rouge, sur fond de paysage. Oil on canvas. Collection d'une collection capitale provenant du cabinet de M. Villers, architecte, composée de tableaux des trois écoles... Par J.B.P. Lebrun. Paris, chez M. Félix et M. Lebrun, 1812, no 120. Location unknown.
- 1814 (Salon, hors livret): Portrait de la duchesse d'Angouleme. Mentioned in Le Mercure de France, 62, janvier-février 1815, p.306. Location unknown.

OEUVRES (ATTRIBUÉES)
- 1800 (Salon no 366): Jeune fille au chien. Oil on canvas. Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Collection du Vicomte de Curel, November 25, 1918, no 29, and Paris, Galerie Charpentier, June 20, 1957, no 142. Location unknown -- Oppenheimer, 1996 (voir infra), p.173, fig.11.

Selected bibliography

- Harris, Ann Sutherland and Nochlin, Linda. Women Artists: 1550-1950. Exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art et al. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1976, p.217.
- La Femme artiste d'Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun à Rosa Bonheur. Exhibition catalogue, Musée Despiau-Wlerick, Donjon Lacataye, Mont-de-Marsan, 1981, p.32-5.
- Oppenheimer, Margaret. "Nisa Villers, née Lemoine (1774-1821)". Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 127, no 1527, April 1996, p.167-80.
- Sterling, Charles. "A Fine 'David' Reattributed". The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, IX, no 5, 1951, p.121-32.

Selected bibliography of images

- 1799 (Salon no 208): Marie-Victoire Lemoine. Une jeune femme appuyée sur le bord d'une croisée, also called Portrait of Marie-Denise Villers. Oil on canvas. Private collection -- Oppenheimer, 1996 (voir infra), p.167-68, fig.4 & fig.5.
- 1799: François Gérard. Madame Villers. Location unknown.

Reception

- [À propos de La Peinture, Salon of 1799]
Damon. Je parie que la citoyenne Villers est élève de Girodet; les cheveux de son tableau tendent à me le persuader.
Le Peintre. Effectivement, c'est Girodet qui lui donne sa manière. J'invite la citoyenne Villers de suivre tout ce qu'a de bon son maître, mais d'abandonner sa manière sèche; si elle suit ce conseil, j'ose pouvoir avancer que cette aimable femme aura un talent très-distingué.
(La Revue du Muséum, in the Collection Deloynes, 21, pièce 562, p.27-8).
- [À propos de l'Etude d'une jeune femme assise sur une fenêtre, Salon of 1801]
"...A l'exactitude des traits
Nisa sait joindre l'élégance;
Voyez sous son joli pinceau
Comme s'enrichit l'accessoire:
Un portrait devient un tableau
Dont la beauté fournit l'histoire."
(L'Observateur au Muséum, ou la Critique des Tableaux, en Vaudeville, Paris, Gautier, s.d., in the Collection Deloynes, 26, pièce 690, p.325).
- [À propos de l'Etude d'une jeune femme assise sur une fenêtre, Salon of 1801] "Ce paysage est mat, faux de ton, sans air, et lourd de touche; ces vases et ces fleurs sont mesquins; cette main est peut-être trop petite; mais la droite est si belle! Ce poignet est peut-être cassé; mais le bras est d'un si beau trait! Ces contours sont si sévères et si purs, que l'on désirerait les suivre davantage sous le vêtement, qui ne les accuse pas assez à mon grand regret. Ce tableau est parfaitement harmonieux; il est exécuté avec tout le charme d'un sexe et toute la fermeté d'un autre. [...] il lui sera difficile dorénavant de se surpasser elle-même" ([Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Chaussard], Journal des Arts, des Sciences et de Littérature, nos. 157-174, 10 Vendémiaire an 10 - 30 Frimaire an 10, p.55).
- [À propos d'Un enfant dans son berceau, entraîné par les eaux de l'inondation du mois de nivôse an X, Salon of 1802] "Le sujet de ce beau Tableau suffirait seul pour en faire la fortune; mais à l'intérêt qu'il inspire se trouve jointe une exécution savante, et peut-être même trop historique. Il annonce dans toutes ses parties un Artiste consommé dans son Art, et il n'est point de maître qui ne tînt à gloire de l'avoir fait. L'enfant est peint et dessiné avec une perfection rare; la tête du chien est d'une expression admirable; les linges et les voiles du berceau sont largement jetés; le ton des eaux est d'une grande vérité. Ce bel ouvrage est de nature à fixer sans retour la réputation de M.me Villers. Il confirme ce que les deux beaux Portraits que l'on a vus d'elle aux deux précédentes expositions, avaient fait pressentir; c'est qu'elle sait, quand elle le veut, se rendre à son choix familiers les divers caractères de beauté qui distinguent le faire de nos plus célèbres maîtres" ("Suite de l'examen des tableaux exposés au Salon," Journal des Arts, des Sciences, et de Littérature, No 228, 30 Fructidor an 10, p.426).
- [À propos d' Une étude de femme d'après nature, Salon of 1802, et d'Un enfant dans son berceau, entraîné par les eaux de l'inondation du mois de nivôse an X, Salon of 1802] "[...] Maria Cosway...attended us to several Artists. First Mad.me Villers a very pretty woman wife to an architect. They are nicely loged [sic] and her painting room is very good. The pictures we saw of hers were female figures or children, quite in the french [sic] style of colouring, but with taste and fancy. A picture of herself in black with a transparent veil covering half her face and tying on her shoe is very clever, but her best is a child sleeping in a cradle carried away by an inundation, and a dog swimming to bring it ashore" (Bertie Greatheed, An Englishman in Paris: 1803, ed. by J.P.T. Bury and J.C. Barry, London, 1953, p.72-3).

}Catégorie:Historical figuresCatégorie:Siefar dictionary