Marie-Denise Villers

With Etienne Breton, Paris (as French School);
From whom purchased by the present collector in circa 1999.

Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith College Museum of Art, The French Portrait: Revolution to Restoration, September 30-December 11, 2005, no. 48.

M. Oppenheimer, French Portrait: Revolution to Restoration, exhibition catalogue, Northampton 2005, pp. 185-7, cat. no. 48, reproduced in color (cover page).

Canvas is unlined. surface is clean and painting is presentable as is. there is excellent retention of the paint surface with lovely detail throughout. there is an overall craquelure pattern, but this is not distracting. ultraviolet light reveals only one very small retouch at center right edge, otherwise no other retouches visible. In a caved and gilt wood frame with a few minor nicks.
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The present picture depicting A Young Woman Seated by a Window, is a modello for a much larger signed painting (see fig.1, present location unknown) which was exhibited at the Salon of 1801 to positive reviews.¹ Exhibited in the same Salon was Villers' Young Woman Drawing  (see fig. 2), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (63 1/2 by 50 5/8 in. (161.3 by 128.6 cm)), New York. Both pictures demonstrate the artist's masterful ability to manipulate the subtle effects of the late afternoon light upon the sitter's torso. So accomplished was Villers' style that in later years the Metropolitan picture was attributed to Jacques-Louis David.² In 1996, Margaret Oppenheimer published her article "Nisa Villers, Née Lemoine (1774-1821)" in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, in which Oppenheimer addresses the fact that the lost composition is signed, and confirms the attribution of that picture and the Metropolitan picture to Villers. Later, Oppenheimer saw the present work and confirmed an attribution to the hand of Villers. She subsequently included it in her exhibition at Smith College in 2005 (see literature).

The theme of the present painting may have been influenced by a picture of a similar subject by Marguerite Gérard, exhibited at the Salon of 1799, under the title, Jeunne Fille Effeuillant une Marguerite. Here we see the sitter after she has picked the petals from the marguerite in her left hand. The act of pulling petals from a flower, meant to determine one's fortune in love ("he loves me, he loves me not") was well known in France at this time and may also explain the pensive look on the sitter's face.³

Villers came from a family of accomplished female artists. Her elder sisters, Marie-Élisabeth Gabiou (d. 1811/14) and Marie-Victoire Lemoine (1754-1820), both exhibited at the Salon de la Correspondance of 1785, although it appears that their production ceased by the beginning of the 19th century. Villers first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1799 where she won an encouragement from the government for critical success. She is listed in the livret as a pupil of Girodet and her style does reflect his influence, in its neo-classical iconography, slightly elongated torso, precision, rich coloring, and harmonious use of light. Villers may have also received training from Jacques-Louis David, who as Girodet's teacher, had a profound effect on not only Girodet, but on th entire generation of Salon painters of the early 18th century.

1. M.A. Oppenheimer, "Nisa Villers, née Lemoine (1774-1821)," in Gazzete des Beaux-Arts, 138 année, April 1996, p.165.
2. Ibid.
3. op.cit