In the studio of the Lemoine & Chaudet sisters

1. De Baecque sale catalogue
27 March 2019

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Lovers of early painting will certainly remember the sale organised by De Baecque & Associés on 27 March 2019: several previously unpublished paintings made their appearance on the art market there, nicely renewing what we thought we knew about the Lemoine sisters. Although far less famous than Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun or Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, the Lemoine sisters are by no means unknown, but the highly singular female artistic movement they formed from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century still remains a mystery. In the spring of 2019, art historian Carole Blumenfeld came to the assistance of the auction house and put forward several proposals for attributing and - above all - identifying these seven unpublished works in La Gazette Drouot. The portrait in which she recognised the features of Marie-Élisabeth Gabiou, née Lemoine, and her daughter Rosalie logically took the highest result of the sale, for which it adorned the cover of the catalogue (ill. 1) and then quickly crossed the Atlantic to be presented by Éric Coatalem at the 4th Tefaf in New York (see news item of 4/11/19).

. Marie-Victoire Lemoine (1754-1820)
Allegory of Painting, 1777
Oil on canvas - 114.5 x 87 cm
Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Studio Sebert

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The Lemoine sisters - as well as their orphaned cousin Jeanne-Élisabeth Gabiou, wife of the sculptor Chaudet - certainly deserved to be looked at at last: it was thanks to the Costa sisters, worthy heirs of parents who were collectors and lovers of rare artists, that the exhibition and its catalogue were able to see the light of day. Although these painters, now largely forgotten, had no Provençal connections, Marie-Victoire Lemoine was already part of the Costa collection. Carole Blumenfeld’s investigation began in the museums of France and continued in their storerooms, archives and private collections. The rediscoveries presented here are as numerous as we could have hoped: the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans kindly entrusted its beautiful Allegory of Painting (ill. 2) to restorer Isabelle Leegenhoek so that it could be the subject of a scientific study prior to the exhibition, which made it possible to remove old varnishes or unsightly repaints and, above all, to read its date of execution. This early work by Marie-Victoire Lemoine is therefore the logical first step in the three rooms on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Villeneuve, now a museum (see article).

3. View of the first room of the Lemoine sisters exhibition at the Musée Jean-Honoré Fragonard in Grasse.
Photo: Press office

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While we must of course regret the cramped nature of these spaces, the only real criticism to be levelled at this exhibition, it sometimes suffers from the colour of the picture rails, which does not always do the paintings on display any…