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“La Jeune Dessinatrice (Portrait of a Young Artist)” by Amélie Legrand de Saint-Aubin (French) - Oil on canvas / 1831 - Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto) #WomenInArt #AmelieLegranddeSaintAubin #AmelieLegrand #ArtGalleryofOntario #ArtText #arte #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #WomenPaintingWomen
A young woman with light skin and warm brown eyes sits upright in a leather armchair. She pauses mid-drawing and looks out with a composed half-smile. Her dark hair is arranged high in a looped Apollo-knot style and topped with an oversized black bow as short curls frame her temples. Around her neck, a translucent double ruff of lace spreads outward, fastened by a wide ribbon bow. She wears sparkling drop earrings and a dark green satin dress with dramatic gigot sleeves. A heavy gold link chain drapes across her bodice. On the table before her, an open sketchbook rests under her left hand. A gold band is visible on her ring finger. Her right hand holds a sharpened pencil poised over a lightly shaded landscape of hills, trees, and rocky ground suggested in quick marks. Behind her, a warm brown wall and a red curtain create a quiet interior stage for making art. Dated 1831, this gorgeous portrait insists on a woman as maker rather than just muse. French artist Amélie Legrand de Saint-Aubin focuses on the motion of hands, the sheen of satin, and the airy lace ruff by using a smooth technique to elevate art study into a public statement of competence. Women were often pictured drawing portraits or copying antique casts so a woman drawing a landscape indoors was far rarer, suggesting she may be copying a landscape painting, drawing, or print. The visible “wedding band” argues against this being a self-portrait as Legrand de Saint-Aubin never married and opens the sitter to possibly being a fellow student or colleague moving through Parisian studio networks. By this point, the artist was a regular Salon exhibitor and portraitist, and the sitter’s direct gaze reads as a claim to professional identity. Its acquisition by the Art Gallery of Ontario, and presentation in a women-artists exhibition, underscores how recovering such works reshapes who is allowed to be seen … and remembered … as an artist.
December 31, 2025 at 6:01 PM