Detail of Marie Josephine Charlotte du Val d'Ognes by Marie Denise Villers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2019

Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d'Ognes (1786–1868)
1801


Object Details

Artist: Marie Denise Villers (French, Paris 1774–1821 Paris (?))

Date: 1801

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 63 1/2 × 50 5/8 in. (161.3 × 128.6 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917

Accession Number: 17.120.204


Many paintings by women artists have become mistakenly attributed to men, including this engaging image, which was once ascribed to Jacques Louis David. It is now thought to be by the portraitist Marie Denise Villers, sister of the artist Marie Victorine Lemoine, whose work hangs nearby. Although little known today, Villers was a gifted pupil of Anne Louis Girodet Trioson (1767–1824); if the attribution to Villers is correct, this painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1801. Apart from demonstrating the artist’s technical skill in trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) painting, the broken windowpane is unsettling, but inexplicable.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437903