Antoinette Béfort
Antoinette Béfort (1788–1868) was a French history painter active in Paris during the late Napoleonic period and the Bourbon Restoration. She exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon between 1810 and 1819, where she received a second-class medal in 1810. Her work consisted primarily of mythological and classical subjects from antiquity and epic poetry.
Biography
Antoinette Élisabeth Jeanne Bandelier de Béfort was born in Paris on 8 August 1788, in the parish of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de la Ville-l’Évêque. She was the daughter of Antoine-Pierre Bandelier, a merchant, and Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Gauvain, who lived near the Place Louis-le-Grand (today the Place Vendôme).[1] Belonging to a commercial milieu that could support her artistic ambitions, Béfort enrolled in the studios of Gioacchino Serangeli and Césarine Davin-Mirvault, themselves both followers of David.[2]
Béfort exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1810 and 1819. A portrait of her by Julie Volpelière, a fellow student of Serangeli, was exhibited at the 1814 Salon.[3] In addition to her work as a history painter, Béfort practiced art restoration, which provided a supplementary income for many women artists of her generation. In 1824, she was recorded as having restored and varnished a painting by Perugino.[4]
On 3 June 1841, Béfort married Pierre Pascal Ledru, at the time captain-adjutant major of the 18th Line Infantry Regiment.[5]
She was active in the Paris art world throughout the Restoration and died in Lyon on 17 October 1868, at the age of 80.[6]
Salon Exhibitions
1810
- Une jeune Thébaine pansant son père blessé (Second-class medal)
1812
- Thésée et Ariane
1814
- Une jeune Thébaine pansant son père blessé
- Thésée allant combattre le Minotaure reçoit le peloton de fil des mains d’Ariane
- Eurydice, fuyant les poursuites d’Aristée, est piquée par un serpent
- Les adieux d’Hector et d’Andromaque
1817
- Les adieux d’Hector et d’Andromaque
- Portrait d’homme
1819
- Céphale et Procris
- Portrait du père de l’auteur[7]
References
- ↑ Bandelier, Antoinette Élisabeth (8 August 1788). "Reconstituted birth certificate". archives.paris.fr. Retrieved 25 December 2025.
- ↑ Sofio, Séverine (3 December 2009). "L'art ne s'apprend pas aux dépens des moeurs!" Construction du champ de l'art, genre et professionnalisation des artistes (1789-1848) (phdthesis thesis) (in French). Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
- ↑ "Explication des ouvrages de peinture et dessins, sculpture, architecture et gravure des artistes vivans..." Gallica (in French). 1814. Archived from the original on 31 March 2025. Retrieved 25 December 2025.
- ↑ "Women painting restorers in Paris before 1950". AWARE Women artists / Femmes artistes. Retrieved 25 December 2025.
- ↑ Ledru, Pierre Pascal; Bandelier, Antoinette Élisabeth Jeanne (3 June 1841). "Marriage certificate". archives.yvelines.fr (in French). Retrieved 25 December 2025.
- ↑ Bandelier, Antoinette Élisabeth Jeanne (17 October 1868). "Death certificate". Lyon archives (in French). Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 25 December 2025.
- ↑ Chavignerie, Émile Bellier de La; Auvray, Louis (1882). Dictionnaire général des artistes de l'école française depuis l'origine des arts du dessin jusqu'à nos jours: architectes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs et lithographes (in French). Librairie Renouard.