Portrait of Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt (1762−1817)

1793

Not on view

Théroigne was a Belgian proto-feminist revolutionary who moved to Versailles in the summer of 1789 in order to attend the debates at the National Assembly. She advocated for the participation of women in revolutionary clubs and authored a pamphlet urging the election of women representatives. She was known to dress in a masculine manner, as seen here in a physionotrace produced by Chrétien and Fouquet. Chrétien invented the physionotrace—the name of both the method and the resulting image—to aid his production of silhouette portraits. Fouquet completed the portraits from life and Chrétien scaled them down to the etching plate; both artists used pantographs, devices that link the movement of one instrument to that of another.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Portrait of Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt (1762−1817)
Artist: Gilles Louis Chrétien (French, Versailles 1754–1811 Paris)
Artist: After Jean Fouquet (French, active 1781–93)
Date: 1793
Medium: Etching and aquatint
Dimensions: Sheet (Trimmed): 2 3/8 × 2 3/8 in. (6 × 6 cm)
Classifications: Prints, Ephemera
Credit Line: Gift of Edward Bement, 1924
Object Number: 24.80.227
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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