Antoinette Gensoul-Desfonts

Marguerite-Antoinette Painclair, known professionally as Antoinette Gensoul-Desfonds (c.1769–1824), was a pioneering French sculptor who exhibited at the Paris Salon during the French Revolutionary Period.

Life Marguerite-Antoinette Painclair was born around 1769. She received her artistic training in London, studying with Agostino Carlini, an Italian sculptor of the Royal Academy. Later, she married fellow artist Jean-Louis-Basile Gensoul, a student of Jean-Baptiste Regnault.

Gensoul-Desfonts was a committed supporter of Revolutionary and Republican ideals. Her sympathies are reflected in the works she exhibited at the 1793 Paris Salon, which included a proposed monument celebrating Liberty and the triumph of Law, Philosophy, and Charity over Despotism, as well as a terracotta sculpture of the revolutionary martyr Michel Le Peletier. The couple's son, born that year, was named Brutus, evoking the Roman figure celebrated for defending the Republic against tyranny.

During the early years of the French Revolution, Gensoul-Desfonts took part in efforts by artists to defend their professional autonomy and secure fair access to state support, signing petitions that challenged secret appointments and called for greater transparency in the governance of the arts.

Gensoul-Desfonts maintained her studio on Paris's Left Bank, first on the rue des Cordeliers and then on the rue de Vaugirard, before later moving to the northeast of the city on the rue de Bondi. In 1792, Gensoul-Desfonts received a commission to create reliefs for a planned column to be erected on the ruins of the Bastille. The plaster model for the column was exhibited at the 1793 Paris Salon. Neither project was ultimately carried forward.

A terracotta sketch of Le Peletier on his deathbed, held by the Musée Carnavalet, has been tentatively attributed by scholar Suzanne Glover Lindsay to Gensoul-Desfonts. However, the inscription does not match a known example of her handwriting.