Marguerite Gérard

Biography Upon the death of her mother in 1775, Marguerite Gérard, the youngest of the seven children, took up residence in the Louvre with her sister and her sister's husband Jean-Honoré Fragonard. allowing her to view and be inspired by great artworks of the past and present. By 1785 she had established a reputation for being a gifted genre painter, the first French woman to do so. The academy denied women the free art training offered to men at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, or the right to compete for the prestigious Prix de Rome. Despite these obstacles, she went on to exhibit widely, particularly following the French Revolution when the Salon was opened to women. Speculation that Gérard and Fragonard were lovers has been thoroughly disproved, and Gérard referred to the older artist as a father figure. She became an unofficial apprentice of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, working from his drawings to create her first pieces of work; soon after, she began to create her own genre paintings. Her unpretentious paintings represented the major underground current in the art of the early 1800s. Depicting the minor domestic dramas in the homes of the rich middle class, Marguerite Gérard not only paved the way for other women artists, but also men of the next generation, including her nephew Alexandre Evariste, to whom she tried to be what Fragonard had been to her.

Subjects As a genre artist, Gérard focused on portraying scenes of intimate domestic life. However, unlike other female painters who liked to refer to classical antiquity, Marguerite Gérard often used costumes and settings from a few centuries before her own. By 1785, she had established a reputation as a gifted genre painter, and was one of the first French women to do so.