Marie Bracquemond

She was born Marie Anne Caroline Quivoron on 1 December 1840 in Argenton-en-Landunvez, near Brest, Brittany. She did not enjoy the same upbringing or career as the other well-known female Impressionists – Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, and Eva Gonzalès. She had one sister, Louise, born in 1849 while her family lived near Ussel (department Corrèze in Limousin) in the ancient abbey Notre-Dame de Bonnaigue. She began lessons in painting at the teenage age of 17 under the instruction of M. Auguste Vassor, "an old painter who now restored paintings and gave lessons to the young women of the town." and introduced her to two of his students, Flandrin and Signol. The critic Philippe Burty referred to her as "one of the most intelligent pupils in Ingres' studio." As a student in Ingres' private Parisian studio, she wrote that, "The severity of Monsieur Ingres frightened me ... because he doubted the courage and perseverance of a woman in the field of painting ... He would assign to them only the painting of flowers, of fruits, of still lives, portraits and genre scenes." She later left Ingres' studio and began receiving commissions for her work, including one from the court of Empress Eugenie for a painting of Cervantes in prison. This evidently pleased, because she was then asked by the Count de Nieuwerkerke, the director-general of French museums, to make important copies in the Louvre. ==Family==

It was while she was copying Old Masters in the Louvre that she saw Félix Bracquemond, who fell in love with her. His friend, the critic Eugène Montrosier, arranged an introduction and, from then, she and Félix were inseparable. They were engaged for two years before marrying on 5 August 1869, despite her mother's opposition. On 22 June 1870, they had their only child, Pierre (1870–1926). Because of the scarcity of good medical care during the War of 1870 and the Paris Commune, Bracquemond's already delicate health deteriorated after her son's birth. Much of what is known of Bracquemond's personal life comes from an unpublished short biography authored by her son, entitled La Vie de Félix et Marie Bracquemond. ==Career==

, 31.5 x 24.8 cm. Félix and Marie Bracquemond worked together at the Haviland studio at Auteuil where her husband had become artistic director. She designed plates for dinner services and executed large tile panels (once known as faience) depicting Les Muses des arts (The muses of the arts), which were shown at the Universal Exhibition of 1878. As she found the medium constraining, her husband's efforts to teach her etching were only a qualified success. She nevertheless produced nine etchings that were shown at the second exhibition of the Society of Painter-Etchers at the Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1890. Her husband introduced her to new media and to the artists he admired, as well as older masters such as Chardin. She was especially attracted to the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens. Between 1887 and 1890, under the influence of the Impressionists, Bracquemond's style began to change. Her canvases grew larger and her colours intensified. She moved out of doors (part of a movement that came to be known as plein air), and to her husband's disgust, Monet and Degas became her mentors. Bracquemond participated in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1879, 1880, and 1886. In 1890, Marie Bracquemond, worn out by the continual household friction and discouraged by lack of interest in her work, abandoned her painting except for a few private works. Her official last work was in the same year called "The Artist’s Son and Sister in the Garden at Sèvres" She remained a staunch defender of Impressionism throughout her life, even when she was not actively painting. In defense of the style to one of her husband's many attacks on her art, she said, "Impressionism has produced ... not only a new, but a very useful way of looking at things. It is as though all at once a window opens and the sun and air enter your house in torrents." ==Death==

She died in Paris on January 17, 1916. In the article, Alexandre wrote that Bracquemond "was one of those artists ignored, of which the times to come will astonish, both the rare talent and the voluntary shadow in which this talent enveloped itself", and described Bracquemond as an "exquisite painter" whose character "was worthy of the work: sensitive, proud and an almost excessive modesty." ==Legacy==

Henri Focillon described Bracquemond in 1928 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. Feminist art criticism in the 1970s brought increasing attention to women in the Impressionist art movement, and renewed interest in the forgotten work of Marie Bracquemond. In the 1980s, art historian Tamar Garb popularized women artists like Marie Bracquemond with the publication of Women Impressionists, leading to a new era of research on the subject. ==Works==

There is no catalogue raisonné for Marie Bracquemond. Bracquemond produced at least 81 paintings and oil sketches, 34 watercolors, 23 drawings, and nine etchings. This list does not include her ceramic works. At least two of her works, the ceramic faience panel The Muses (1878) and the painting The Swallow (1880), depicting the Sisleys in a boat on the Seine, are untraced and presumed lost. Self-portrait-1870 Bracquemond.jpg|Self-portrait (1870). Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Normandy, France. Woman in the garden 1877.jpg|Woman in the Garden (1877). Private collection. Pierre Bracquemond as a Child (1878).png|Pierre Bracquemond as a Child (1878). Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Normandy, France. Lady in White (La Dame en Blanc).jpg|The Lady in White (1880). Musée d'Orsay. Braquemond Afternoon Tea.jpg|Afternoon Tea (1880). Petit Palais, Paris, France. Marie Bracquemond Trois femmes.jpg|Three Women with Parasols (1880). Musée d'Orsay. Bracquemond.sevres.jpg|On the Terrace at Sèvres (1880). Musée du Petit Palais, Geneva, Switzerland; second copy at Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation, Tokyo, Japan. Marie Bracquemond - Le peintre (James Tissot ) et son modèle dans un jardin fleuri, dit aussi « Étude d’après nature ».jpg|Study from Nature (1880). Private Collection. Marie Bracquemond Under the Lamp.jpg|Under the Lamp (1887). Private collection. File:Femme assise Bracquemond.jpg|Femme assise. Undated. Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris. Landscape- garden separated by a wall from a lawn shaded by trees.jpg|Landscape. Unknown date. Musée d'Orsay. Terraced garden, overlooking the countryside.jpg|Terraced garden, overlooking the countryside. Unknown date. Musée d'Orsay. Marie Bracquemond Woman with an Umbrella.gif|Woman with an Umbrella (1880). Private collection. Portrait of the artist's sister.jpg|''Portrait of the Artist's Sister'' (c. 1860) Head of a muse.jpg|Head of a Muse (c. 1860) Study for the lady in white Bracquemond.jpg|Study for The Lady in White. Undated. Les parapluies Bracquemond.jpg|Les parapluies. Undated. Musée d'Orsay. Portrait de Pierre Bracquemond engraving 2 of 2.jpg|Le Petit malade. Undated. Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris. File:Portrait of Mlle Quivoron MET DP860678.jpg|Portrait de M Quivoron. Undated. Metropolitan Museum of Art. File:Portrait of the Critic Gustave Geffroy (Art Institute of Chicago).png|Portrait de Gustave Geffroy. Undated. Art Institute of Chicago. File:Self-portrait 1888 PMOA.jpg|Portrait de Marie Bracquemond (1888). Philadelphia Museum of Art. File:Vase à deux prises latérales Marie Bracquemond.jpg|Vase. Undated. Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris. File:Haviland pottery vase 1880.jpg|Haviland & Co. Limoges Céramique Impressioniste Barbotine French pottery vase. c. 1880. Private collection. == Selected exhibitions ==