Two Women Making Music
Pauline AUZOU
(French, 1775 - 1835)
Two Women Making Music
Date1796
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 57 1/2 × 58 in. (146.1 × 147.3 cm)
frame: 67 1/2 × 67 in. (171.5 × 170.2 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Mrs. Hugh N. Kirkland
Object number1952.3
Subject(s)
- women
- portraits
- book
- musical instrument
- music
Collection
- European
- Old Master
Sub-Collection(s)
- French
On View
On viewLabel TextIn the 18th century, women were very rarely granted the privilege of membership in the Academy in France, which they required in
order to participate in the state-sponsored, biannual exhibitions at the Louvre (known as Salons). Pauline Auzou had the good fortune to study with Jean-Baptiste Regnault, a rival of Jacques-Louis David, at a studio reserved for women in Regnault’s atelier some years before 1793. Auzou regularly contributed to the Salon exhibitions from the 1790s through the first decades of the 19th century. She chose to exhibit this double-portrait of herself and her sister at the Salon of 1796. Women artists were disallowed from drawing from the male nude, which is why they so often used their own likenesses or that of family members in ambitious figural works of this scale. This also accounts for the comparative skill with which the young Auzou was able to describe surface effects in the clothing, drapery, and furniture in distinct contrast to her somewhat less compelling mastery of the human body. The anatomical inconsistency of their elongated proportions is likely an affectation she would have gleaned from Italian mannerist prints of the previous century, as are the fluttering ribbons that seem to defy the laws of gravity.
order to participate in the state-sponsored, biannual exhibitions at the Louvre (known as Salons). Pauline Auzou had the good fortune to study with Jean-Baptiste Regnault, a rival of Jacques-Louis David, at a studio reserved for women in Regnault’s atelier some years before 1793. Auzou regularly contributed to the Salon exhibitions from the 1790s through the first decades of the 19th century. She chose to exhibit this double-portrait of herself and her sister at the Salon of 1796. Women artists were disallowed from drawing from the male nude, which is why they so often used their own likenesses or that of family members in ambitious figural works of this scale. This also accounts for the comparative skill with which the young Auzou was able to describe surface effects in the clothing, drapery, and furniture in distinct contrast to her somewhat less compelling mastery of the human body. The anatomical inconsistency of their elongated proportions is likely an affectation she would have gleaned from Italian mannerist prints of the previous century, as are the fluttering ribbons that seem to defy the laws of gravity.
