Portrait of Madeleine, also known as Portrait of a Black Woman (French : Portrait d'une femme noire or Portrait d'une negresse), is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist, created in 1800. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1800, later was acquired by Louis XVIII for the French state in 1818, and remains in the collection of the Louvre.
The half-length portrait measures 81 cm × 65 cm (32 in × 26 in). It depicts a young black woman, sitting in a gilt armchair mostly covered with a blue cloth, in front of a plain light background. She is seated in a three-quarter position towards her left, but her head turns to look directly at the viewer with a self-assured expression. She is wearing a white cloth tied as a headdress, and a white dress tied with a red cord. The loose end of the headcloth hangs down on the left side of her face, but her right ear is visible with a hoop hearing. Her right arm rests in her lap; her left arm is holding up the dress, but it has slipped down to reveal her right breast. Her legs fall outside the frame. The realistic dark skin tones – long considered a challenging topic for European artists – shows Benoit's artistic skill. It is signed by the subject's right hand with the artist's maiden name and married names: "Laville Leroulx / f. Benoist" ("f" for "femme", or "wife of").
The composition has similarities to Benoist's 1802 portrait of Madame Philippe Panon Desbassayns de Richemont and her son Eugène, now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The painting was first exhibited at the 1800 Paris Salon as Portrait d'une négresse. Along with three other works by Benoist, the painting was acquired by Louis XVIII for France in 1818 for a total price of 11,000 francs. Initially held at the Luxembourg Palace, it has been in the collection at the Louvre for many years.
The painting was renamed Portrait de Madeleine after recent scholarship led to the identification of the subject in 2019 as a woman named Madeleine who came to France from Guadeloupe after slavery was abolished in France and its colonies in 1794, and who worked as a servant for Benoist's in-laws, the Benoist-Cavays.
The subject – a woman of colour – was unusual at the time: the only other portrait of a person of colour at the Paris Salon in this period was Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson's 1797 portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley.
Its enigmatic presentation and apparent internal contradictions have prompted much speculation about the artist's motivation and intentions, with recent interpretations focussing on ideas of slavery, race, gender, class, and their interactions.
Madeline was a servant, yet is depicted in a wealthy milieu, wearing jewellery and sitting on an expensive chair. Most paintings of the period that include black women show them as servants to a white woman; while Madeline sits alone, she is working as a model to the unseen Benoist. The simple white clothes have a neoclassical air, similar to other contemporary portraits such as Jacques-Louis David’s 1799 portrait of Henriette de Verninac. The bared breast would be unusual for a portrait painting, and suggests an allegory or mythological subject, or possibly alludes to the slave trade. The colours – red, white, blue – parallel the colours of the French revolutionary tricolour adopted in 1789, and may suggest an allusion to Marianne, a female personification of liberty and of France itself. Her beauty and elegance seem no lesser than of a white woman, and thus the portrait can be seen as portraying equality between all women, regardless of race.
Painted in the brief period between the abolition of slavery in 1794 and the reinstatement of slavery in French colonies by Napoleon in 1802, the work has been taken as a symbol of women's emancipation and black people's rights.
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, also known as Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson or simply Girodet, was a French painter and pupil of Jacques-Louis David, who participated in the early Romantic movement by including elements of eroticism in his paintings. Girodet is remembered for his precise and clear style and for his paintings of members of the Napoleonic family.
Achille Jacques-Jean-Marie Devéria was a French painter and lithographer known for his portraits of famous writers and artists. His younger brother was the Romantic painter Eugène Devéria, and two of his six children were Théodule Devéria and Gabriel Devéria.
Events in the year 1824 in Art.
Marie-Denise Villers was a French painter who specialized in portraits.
List of years in Art
Events from the year 1798 in art.
Eugène Panon Desbassayns de Richemont, second Comte de Richemont, was a French colonial administrator and inventor.
Marie-Guillemine Benoist, born Marie-Guillemine Laville-Leroux, was a French neoclassical, historical, and genre painter.
Events from the year 1767 in art.
Events from the year 1824 in France.
Jean-Baptiste Belley was a Saint Dominican and French politician. A native of Senegal and formerly enslaved in the colony of Saint-Domingue, in the French West Indies, he was an elected member of the Estates General, the National Convention, and the Council of Five Hundred during the French First Republic. He was also known as Mars.
Marie-Philippe Coupin de la Couperie was a French painter of the Troubadour style. He was a friend of the painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson.
Jean-Baptiste Roman was a French sculptor. He was born and died in Paris. Among his works is a sculpture on the death of Cato the Younger, a theme that became popular along with revolutionary sentiment. It depicts Cato reading the Phaedo of Plato, on the death of Socrates, heroically nude as he contemplates his own death. The piece was commissioned in 1832 for the Louvre, but was finished by François Rude after his friend's death.
Charles-Frédéric Soehnée was a French painter. He was the fourth child of merchant Jacques Frédéric Soehnée and Caroline Wilhelmine.
Marie Anne Thérèse Ombline Desbassayns was a French planter and slave trader on the French island of La Réunion. She was one of the most prominent slave planters of the island after she was widowed in 1800 and until death, and played a significant role in the economy and slave industry of the colony. She became an important figure in the local folklore, and one of the most well-known figures of the history of the island.
Pierre-Philippe-Alexandre Panon Desbassyns de Richemont was a French archaeologist, historian and politician. Between 1871 and 1882 he represented French India first in the National Assembly and then in the Senate.
Napoleon I as Emperor, also known as Napoleon I in his Coronation Robes, is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist François Gérard, produced in 1805 under the First French Empire and currently displayed at the Palace of Versailles. Gérard initially produced the painting as an official portrait of Napoleon I for his throne room at the Tuileries Palace. It was later moved to the Palace of Versailles. The painting spent time at the Louvre, at the Élysée Palace, then at the Château de Saint-Cloud before returning to Versailles in 1894.
The Portrait of Mlle Lange as Danaë is a painting by French painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson. This satirical painting of the actress Anne Françoise Elisabeth Lange as Danaë replaced a Venus for the last two days of the Paris Salon of 1799, after a dispute between the artist and the sitter. It is now part of the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
The Burial of Atala or The Funeral of Atala is an 1808 oil-on-canvas painting by the French painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson. It depicts a scene from Francois-René de Chateaubriand's novel, Atala, written in 1801. Inspired by this tragic love story, Girodet captures its dramatic tone by combining both Neoclassical and Romantic elements while emphasizing the sensuality of Atala’s death.
Pygmalion and Galatea is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French painter Anne-Louis Girodet. It represents the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea as told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses. The figures Pygmalion and Galatea are shown with Cupid, the god of desire. Girodet began the work in 1813, but it took him eight years to complete. It is Girodet's last work.
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