Perhaps you’ve heard of the 18th c. French artist who worked in the court of Louis XVI, one of only two women artists admitted into the Académie Royale during his reign.
Mais oui, you may be saying. The artist who painted portraits of Marie-Antoinette. The one who was lovely and flirtatious, who doted on her sweet daughter as a woman should, the personification of la doceur de vivre: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.
No, not that one. The other court painter, the unlovely, socially awkward, childless Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. The one who started as a miniaturist and later moved on to pastels, before finally obtaining a commission for a history painting (the most highly regarded of the painting categories)…which was burned during the Revolution.
Bridget Quinn’s Portrait of a Woman brings Adélaïde to life in a book that is more than a biography. Because Adélaïde* left no diaries or correspondence, Quinn has taken he liberty of making (extremely educated) guesses about Adélaïde’s thoughts and feelings. Readers get to feel they are in the artist’s head, an impression aided by Quinn’s use of contemporary speech that the artist would no doubt use if she were alive today. When describing Élisabeth’s portrait of herself and her daughter, the author interprets the artist’s message to the viewer:
Fear not, good people. I’m hella hot and talented,
just like any other doting mommy who loves her
pretty child.
Obstacles
The author also deals with the perennial issue of pitting exceptional women against each other. The star ballerinas of the day, Cupis de Camargo and Madeleine Guimard, were examples of this tale as old as time. I’m old enough to remember when Katy Perry and Taylor Swift were part of a similar trumped-up competition. The trope is, it’s so unusual to for a woman to excel in any field, there can’t possibly be more than one. And if there are two, those women must be rivals. Such was the case with Adélaïde and Elisabeth, although in truth, they didn’t know each other personally.
It had to be galling for Adélaïde to watch her rival ascend to great success, while she went through a separation (there was no divorce yet) that left her in dire financial straits and disallowed to live in an apartment in the Louvre as were other members of the Académie. Those dark, winding hallways were considered too dangerous for a single woman to negotiate! Another nuisance for a woman artist was the accusation of having a man paint her work. And there were actually pamphlets passed around featuring doggerel about a single woman’s supposed promiscuity.
The Artist as Feminist
All of this led to Adélaïde becoming what we now consider a feminist. Her Portrait of Madame Charles Mitoire with Her Children is the first breast-feeding scene painted by a woman. She, and not Elisabeth, taught female students who had no other way to gain artistic training. 
This was sisterhood, and her version of motherhood. One of her students, Marie-Gabrielle Capet (at the right in this painting), returned the favor by recording Adélaïde in the act of painting The Atelier of Madame-Vincent in order to prove that no male artist assisted her. And after the Revolution, Adélaïde spoke at the Académie, advocating for allowing more women artists (beyond the traditional four-woman cap) into their ranks.
Adélaïde died in 1803, leaving two hundred works of art.Her paintings bridged the elements of Rococo, with its “lively strokes, soft color, and sweet subject,” with Neoclassical structure and details. She was her own creation, building her artistic stature, painting by painting. Portrait of a Woman details her fascinating story, embellished with colored illustrations of Adélaïde’s magnificent work.
*Like the author, I’m using the artist’s first names only, as their last names changed with their marriages.
**By this time, Adélaïde had married her lifelong friend, François-André Vincent.