03 — ARTWORK
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils
LABILLE-GUIARD, Adélaide · 1785 →
- MEDIUM
- Oil on canvas, 211 x 151 cm
- TYPE
- Portrait
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 1000 × 1382 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The artist portrayed herself before the easelStand on which a painting is supported while the artist works on it. The oldest representation of an easel is on an Egyptian relief of the Old Kingdom (c. 2600-2150 BC). Renaissance illustrations of the artist at work show all kinds of contrivances, the commonest being the three-legged easel with pegs, such as we still use today. Light folding easels were not made until the 18th and 19th centuries, when painters took to working out of doors. The studio easel, a 19th-century invention, is a heavy piece of furniture, which runs on castors or wheels, and served to impress the c1ients of portrait painters. Oil painters need an easel which will support the canvas almost vertically or tip it slightly forward to prevent reflection from the wet paint, whereas the watercolourist must be able to lay his paper nearly flat so that the wet paint will not run down. The term 'easel-painting' is applied to any picture small enough to have been painted on a standard easel. with her two pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond (died 1788).
In 1783, when Labille-Guiard and Vigée-Lebrun were admitted to the French Académie Royale, the number of women artists eligible for membership was limited to four, and this canvasA woven cloth used as a support for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word 'canvas' has become almost a synonym for an oil painting, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden panel (which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a ground, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the pigments. It must also be made taut on a stretcher or by some other means. has been interpreted as a propaganda piece, arguing for the place of women in the academy.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rd90d415766f0e3,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Self-Portrait with Two Pupils by LABILLE-GUIARD, Adélaide},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/labille-guiard-adlaide-rf3e04f39830368/self-portrait-with-two-pupils-rd90d415766f0e3},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
