Catalog Entry

Catalog Entry

Victoria Z Castillo Abdallah

November 30th, 2022

Portrait of a Woman: Viviane,
ca. 1785
Jeanne Dabos (French. 1763-1842).
Brush and watercolor. Pen and ink on paper; Calligraphy
45.4 x 36 cm (17 ⅞ x 14 3/16 in.);
Bequest of Erksine Hewitt; 1938-57-227

Description of Object

Viviane: Portrait of a Woman is a harmonious work of pastels and calligraphy. It is sharp in the force of the pen and soft in execution. It is a melodious and modest piece, grounded by quiet greens and the flashes of blue and pink hues which disguise the fastidiousness of such thoughtful detail. A woman is portrayed on paper through brush, watercolor, pen, and ink. Her profile gazes outward from inside the frame of a long and narrow oval. The composition and juxtaposition of this frame and its outlying negative space embody the circular motions of late rococo and early neoclassicism style, memorializing the visual delight of this bygone era.

The outskirts of the focal point are softly brushed over in beige-adjacent watercolor, fading into a crisper sepia-tone within the parameters of the oval shape. The tone concludes the scope of the portrait, leaving an untouched margin of paper-white. The outermost layer of the oval touches upon the diagonal edges of the paper, missing the horizontal edges by millimeters. The mint green hue of the egg-shaped ring is a stark contrast to the muted backdrop of the portraiture. It is a quiet and discrete hue of mint, never quite dancing off the page but encompassing the subject in a tone easily recognizable for its associations with the aesthetics of 1700’s French femenine performance. At the bottom center, brown calligraphy labels our subject, Viviane.

The left side of the page differs from the right - golden-brown coloring lingers, blending into the oval’s ornamental components, adding a sense of color dimension and indiscernible circumstance into the piece. A singular golden brown tassel dangles from the inner side of the oval until the edge of the tint. It is joined by two others that fall diagonally and conceal themselves amidst the calligraphy. Inside the green frame, there is a set of tassels. The fringe and trim allusions of the tassels are reminiscent of those we correlate with the performing arts and the curtains, which indicate “showtime.” As per Mimi Hellman’s abundant inquiries into the eighteenth century’s comportment etiquette, sociability was a performance in itself. Her study, “Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure in Eighteenth-Century France” centers around this unspoken social contract which shaped the court of public opinion and behavior.

The coat between the green frame and Viviane’s space consists of decorative turns with triangular apogees that face outwardly. Broad swirls elongate into a pattern of three teardrops, repeating themselves into the shape of the oval frame. The coloring of this ink is not entirely black; instead, it is an almost-there warmed brown. Inside this pattern, there is an ornament of only the swirls, except in this layer, they’re thinner and devoid of the teardrop trilogy. This line of decor marks the last of the framing efforts.

The woman sits in the oval center, giving the viewer a left-side profile of her full figure. The ink lines are gentle with her features and cluttered when depicting density. Her back is lined by a peach-toned ribbon that cascades down from a bow lapel detail on the shoulder. Her bust is full, sharp lines and a peach cast cup her breasts and indicate mindfulness of the female shape in her garments. The top appears to be a flared basque-ish style, shown by the circular motion of the lines, perhaps alluding to movement and fabric surplus. The bell-shaped sleeve of her garment is wide and fabric-dense. A small watercolor indigo blue band concludes the sleeve halfway through her upper arm. It reads “Bernard. f...”. This is Jeanne’s given name, her father was Jean-Joseph Bernard, prolific painter and calligrapher himself.

The ancien regime’s concentration on self presentation and aggrandizement manifests in our subject’s elaborate hairstyle. The pouf can look like texturized which is coiffed into a heightened nest effect. The curls are compact and abundant, gathering into an air balloon. The hair in the back falls in softer waves, left significantly longer and less frizzed than its frontal counterpart. Black ink accumulates in the conjunction of both lengths, deepening the effect of the distinction. At the top of her head sits a blue-purple hat that erupts into folds upon folds of a fabric headdress, draping against one another, adding height and magnificence. The first folds of fabric are decorated with a flexuous pattern. The rest are filled in with an ink grid that differs in accordance with dimension and depth; this could be interpreted as a formal arrangement of lace or a similarly feminine textile. Towards the crown of her head, two large feathers erupt in opposite directions, a customary form of female decorum during this time. A light coating of blue covers the feathers, conversing with the color of the armband and the minimalist peach tincture of the torso.

The oval and circular visuals of the portrait consummate in the composition of the visage, at the heart of the frame, fronting the supple motions of the body is a cushy face. The circled eye wanders off from the page, looking to a horizon under dark eyelashes, emphasizing baggy and shaded eyelids. The visible eyebrow arches symmetrically, degrading in intensity towards the end. A small flat nose becomes bulbous and circular at the tip, matching the rounded smoothness of her lips and jaw. The mouth is colored in a light red, also utilized to signify the fleshy wetness of her nostrils and lip crevices. It isn’t used in any other part of this depiction. The non-angular chin and jawline are barely defined. The subject’s maxilla structure is not protruding; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

The position and rendering of Viviane is an ailment of a culture which was enamored with beauty and defined it as something soft and unoffensive. The egg-shaped motif of the subject and its framing endeavors is at the core of this portrait’s design principles. This imagery is informed by the visual vocabulary of the late eighteenth century which focused on the theatrically delightful, visually engaging, and constraint in execution.

Narrative Commentary

“The single most striking fact about the women who made a name for themselves as painters before the nineteenth century is that almost all of them were related to better-known male painters” - Germaine Greer

A well-documented struggle for artistically inclined women is the boys-club nature of the fine arts as an institution. In our modernity, we have made significant strides towards a world devoid of gender as a political system. More and more women continue to step into leadership positions of creative roles, but this has not always been the case. In the early modern period, female propriety directly refuted art as a discipline, and so female artists were limited to their respective relationships with their male relatives and connections. The enlightenment with all of its concomitant sentiments of liberty and anti status-quo revolt might have been partly responsible for the work of women like Jeanne Dabos, whilst the rigid social context that preceded it might be culprit for how little we really know about it.

Catherine R. Monfort’s evaluation of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun is an applicable inquiry into the treatment of female artists. Notably, it is a telling testament to the artistic climate of the practice that so few women artists are renowned by name while the relevant discourse is overwhelmingly male. The Royal Academy which was founded in 1648 was open to all regardless of gender as per Louis XIV’s decree after 1663. Painting is of course a learned skill which requires education and guidance - the academy offered this alongside royal patronage and prestige. The all gender policy was reversed shortly after it was indicted, in 1706, from then onward only four women were welcomed into the coveted institution.

In the domain of art, the lowest in the totem pole of genre hierarchy was still life and miniatures. The ruling genre was of course Bible narratives, mythology, and history, to make these, an artist had to be well versed in anatomy, which was of course a study deemed improper for feminine values. As a loophole for this societal rule, women began to practice portraiture, as it required virtually no familiarity with nudity or vulgarity. Monfort believes this shift might have been prompted by the aforementioned mobility, albeit limited, amidst the Royal Academy.

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun both went on to find fame through their portraiture and royal patronage, going as far as to be admitted into acclaimed academies and exhibited in highly-regarded salons. They are both recognized for their pioneering in the female practice of oil painting - the most accoladed of the mediums - Guiard especially for her championing of other women artists. It is speculated in some unreliable sources that Jeanne Dabos was one of her many students throughout her tenure as teacher. Success was not easy, and certainly not without question. The court of public opinion gawked cynically at women artists, finding that those two words were rather oxymoronic in conjunction. Guiard and Vigée were attacked morally and consequently artistically. Their sexual behavior was the subject of great speculation and more often than not, fruitful and engaging coed relationships were converted into affair accusations by the onlookers of the time’s art scene. It was virtually impossible for women to be divorced from their role as ladies in the lives of men.

The prescribed role of femininity consisted of reproduction and support for the members' bourgeois domestic life. Mentalities such as this are deeply intertwined with how we view and define the human output of material, in this case, art. As John Stuar Mill noted on the passivity of male-female relations, "Everything which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural." Our natural and shared definition of genius is male, our masters of craft are historically as well. Women’s roadmap to ingenuity is paved with male efforts, and our interpretation of womanhood is rooted in these male superlative accomplishments.

The mythology of female artistry is the stuff of fairy tales. Perhaps this is why our scholarship is so eager on a handful of female names, but as Linda Nochlin famously explores in her work “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” They are just hidden in the tectonic ether of the male “greats” or even “mediocres.” Jeanne Dabos is one of many virtually nameless female artists in the footnotes of a male story. Her husband, Laurent Dabos was a painter of the utmost genre - historical subjects. Her father, Jean-Joseph Bernard was an artist and calligrapher. In the same vein of Germaine Greer’s observation of female talent as an appendix of their male influences, the limited information on Jeanne’s creative output is made all the more poignant by the parallel techniques between her and her father’s work.

On the right, is a portrait of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Joseph Bernard dated two years after the

presumed composition of Viviane in 1787. Questions of artistic identity undoubtedly rise from

the uncanny similarities between these two works. The coloring, essence, and rendering of the

pieces is almost identical, except Bernard’s is arguably a crisper and a more exact and masterful

appointment of these mediums.

The trajectory of artistic stardom is lonely and relatively unclear. Our only tool to understand the unspoken stories of the unknown names in our material culture is the dissemination of the outliers in the patriarchal politics who did make it. Additionally, by critically analyzing the male works and systems of the emerging bourgeois we can begin to understand the parameters under which women were restrained, creatively and otherwise. We will never know what Jeanne Dabos could have created had there been more than a handful of women to consult, or had her father and husband not been the dictators of her agency and the victors of greater societal status. However, we can honor the stories we will never know by digging for them, and mourning them, so that someday, those tales can become a cautionary master narrative.

Object Provenance

It is credited as “Bequest of Erskine Hewitt.” It was purchased in 1938 by the Cooper Hewitt Museum of History of Design, and checked on the museum inventory of 1947.
The previous owner remains unknown.

Endnotes

Auricchio, Laura. “Eighteenth-Century Women Painters in France.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/18wa/hd_18wa.htm (October 2004)

Baetjer, Katharine, and Marjorie Shelley. Pastel Portraits Images of 18th-Century Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

Dunn, Lindsay. "Revolutionizing the Study of Female Artists." The Eighteenth Century 53, no. 2 (2012): 253-56. Accessed November 28, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41468184.

Greer, Germaine. “The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work.” New York: Farrar. 1979

Harris, Ann Sutherland, and Linda Nochlin. Women Artists, 1550-1950. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. New York: Knopf, 1976.

Hellman, Mimi. “Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure in Eighteenth-Century France.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 32, no. 4 (1999): 415–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053926.

Montfort, Catherine R. “Self-Portraits, Portraits of Self: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Women Artists of the Eighteenth Century.” Pacific Coast Philology 40, no. 1 (2005): 1–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474166.

Nochlin, Linda. Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? ARTnews. 1971

Pollock, Griselda. Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art. London: Routledge, 1988.