Quel est le plus heureux?

This detailed engraving by Lingée presents a scene of gendered social relations in early Napoleonic France. Little is known about Lingée or her completed works. Until recently, her identity was confused and collapsed with that of her mother, the accomplished engraver Thérèse Eléonore Hémery Lingée. The younger artist began publishing prints at the age of eighteen and trained in her family workshop, learning from her parents, both engravers. This print showcases Lingée’s skill as she deftly combines fine etched lines with the dotted punctures of a spiked roulette tool to craft the delicate detail of the molding on the wall, the figures’ rounded forms, and tricky illusions such as the reflection of the man who wistfully leans toward the mirror at right.

In this print and its pair (see 37.68.23), Lingée depicted scenes of romantic pursuit. Here, a woman in a fashionable thin white gown sits amid male suitors who pursue her with notes slipped into her hand, kisses, and sneaky glances. Unlike the overwhelmed woman, in its pair (37.68.23), a man is unfazed by the women who fawn over him. Artwork that decorates both settings reminds viewers of the dangers of lust, depicting the stories of Susanna and the Elders, Lucretia, and Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Divorce was legalized during the French Revolution, in 1792, granting women greater control in romantic relationships, but Napoleon would restrict it in 1803. The subtle differences between these two scenes point to the gendered power imbalances of love in Napoleonic France.