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Marie-Victoire Lemoine was a French classicist painter. She was born into a middle-class family in Paris, at a time when the subject matter of female painters was limited; most importantly, they could not study nude models. She mainly paints portraits, miniatures and genre paintings. Interestingly, her sisters Marie-Denise Villers and Marie-Élisabeth Gabiou also became painters. Unlike them, she did not marry, but became one of the few women in contemporary art who made a living by painting.
The subject of the portrait has been identified as the infamous Louis Benoît Zamor, a disciple of Louis XV’s last mistress, the famous Madame du Barry. Eleven-year-old Zamor was abducted by slave traders from the great port of Subhaji, Bengal, in the Mogle Empire (now Bangladesh) and sold to Louis XV. The king gave the child to his mistress and named him Louis-Benoit. Later, when the French Revolution broke out, Madame du Barry expelled Zamor from her home. His testimony to Madame du Barry was a factor in her guillotine in 1793. Here, Lemoyne creates an astonishing portrait of the young man. His elegant silk garments and embroidered vests suggest that he had some connections to aristocratic families.
Side note: Louis Benoit was not the only African-American revolutionary. Here you can also see an outstanding neoclassical portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, the first black man in French history to hold a government position.
Also if you’re interested in learning more about female artists, check out our daily art postcards and notepads . We promise, you’ll love them!
65.1 x 54.6 cm
Neoclassicism
Cummer Museum
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