Psyché Bidding Adieu to her Family

(Marie-Guillemine Benoist)

In our 2021 publication on the Psyche figure 11, page 45 publishes a Saffo (location unknown) that was tentatively attributed to Benoist, sight unseen by Astrid Reuter. The painting has reappeared at an auction in Vicenza in October 2021 and a direct inspection revealed that it was of mediocre quality and almost certainly not by the artist.

[Louis-Gabriel Admyrauld (1760-1835),4 La Rochelle, deputy, prefect of Charente- Inférieure; to Louis-Gabriel Admyrauld (1784-1850), La Rochelle, deputy, lieutenant-colonel of infantry, by descent to Jules Henry Ernest ‘Albert’ Admyrauld (1842- ?); by descent.]

Marie-Juliette Ballot, with a preface by Henri, Baron Cochin, Une Élève de David – La Comtesse Benoist, L’Émilie de Demoustier 1768-1826, Paris, 1914; Women Artists, 1550-1950, Exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, etc, 1976; Elsa Honig Fine, Women and Art : A History of Women Painters and Sculptors from the Renaissance to the 20th Century, Allanheld and Schram, Montclair, New Jersey, and London, before 1978; La Femme artiste d’Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun à Rosa Bonheur, exhibition catalogue, Musée Despiau-Wlerick, Donjon Lacataye, Mont-de-Marsan, 1981; Vivian Cameron, Woman as Image and Image Maker in Paris during the French Revolution, PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1983; Susan Waller, Women Artists in the Modern Era: A Documentary History, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1981; Claire Constans, Musée National du Château de Versailles, Les Peintures, vol 2 (for related work), Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationales, 1995; Margaret A. Oppenheimer, ‘Three Newly Identified Paintings by Marie-Guillemine Benoist’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 31, 1996 ; Vivian Cameron, ‘Mme Benoist’, Dictionary of Women Artists, Introductory Surveys, Vol A-L, 1997. pp.244-246; Astrid Reuter, Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist: Gesaltungsräume einer Künstlerin um 1800, Lukas Verlag 2002 (which includes a catalogue of known or exhibited works); James Smalls, ‘Slavery is a Woman : Race, Gender and Visuality in Marie Benoist’s Portrait d’une négresse (1800)’, Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide : a journal of nineteenth century visual culture, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2004; Vivian Cameron, ‘Mme Benoist’, Concise Dictionary of Women Artists, Routledge, 2013; Marianne Lévy, Marie-Guillemine Laville-Leroulx et les siens: Une femme peintre de l’Ancien Régime à la Restauration (1768-1826), L’Harmattan, 2018.

Paris, Galerie de Monsieur LeBrun, Exposition de la jeunesse, July 1791; Paris, Salon, 1791, no. 164.