Portrait of a Female Painter

Nanine Vallain (1767-1815)
19th century, Oil on canvas

This extraordinary painting depicts a woman in an elegantly draped white Empire-style dress, holding brushes and sitting in front of a large canvas placed on an easel. Although by an unknown artist, the painting recalls a series of portraits and self-portraits of French women produced during the years of the Directorate and the Consulate (1796-1804): during this period a recognisable iconography of the female artist emerged. The painting bears remarkable stylistic similarities to La Liberté (Museé de la Révolution Française, Vizille) by Jeanne Louise (called Nanine) Vallain, which hung in the main meeting hall of the Jacobins in Paris. Vallain (1767-1815, also known as Mme Piètre), was a student of Joseph-Benoît Suvée and Jacques-Louis David and exhibited her work between 1785 and 1810. The similarities with Vallain's early allegorical canvases suggest the tantalizing possibility that the painting is a self-portrait of Vallain from 1804.