Home » Artists » Marie Bracquemond -The Forgotten Impressionist

Why Has Marie Bracquemond’s Name Faded into Obscurity?

Marie Bracquemond is virtually an unknown name compared to all the impressionst artists.

Marie Braquemond Self portrait
Marie Bracquemond – Self Portrait [Public Domain]

In 1928, French art historian Henri Focillon wrote that there were three ”grande dames” of Impressionism: Berthe MorisotMary Cassatt and Marie Bracquemond. Why have we not heard of her? What happened that she barely made it as a footnote in the history of impressionism? Read on….

Marie Braquemond painting entitled: Afternoon_Tea
Marie Bracquemond [Public domain] Wikimedia Commons

Beginnings

Marie Anne Carolyn Quivoron was her maiden name. As a young girl, she already had an interest in art. She took art lessons as a teenager and progressed well. In 1857 Marie submits a painting to the Salon and it is accepted. This is huge achievement for any painter, and in particular for a young female artist.

Scorned as a Female Artist

Marie becomes a student of the highly regarded Ingres. However, Ingres scorns and ridicules her because she wants to be a female artist .


“He wished to impose limits. He would assign to them [women] only the painting of flowers, of fruits, of still lifes, portraits and genre scenes… I wish to work at painting, not to paint some flowers, but to express those feelings that art inspires in me.”

Unfortunately it is not the last time Marie struggles with domineering men. Eventually her promising career will end because of another.

Woman with an umbrella - Marie Bracquemond painting
Marie Bracquemond [Public domain] Wikimedia Commons

She meets her husband, a fellow artist

Frustrated with Ingres, Marie leaves his studio and starts working independently. She receives commissions and her beautiful paintings start getting attention.The director of the French museums offers her commissions to create special copies of the Old Masters exhibited in the Louvre.

It is in the Louvre that she meets a fellow artist, Felix Bracquemond who she eventually marries.

Marie Braquemond’s Developing Career

After marriage, Marie and her husband worked together. Marie also regularly submits paintings to the Paris Salon starting from 1864.

Bracquemond meets Monet & Degas

At some stage in her life Marie meets the emerging impressionist artists Monet and Degas. Their use of colors and brush strokes interest her and she adopts these ideas. Her style, as a result, dramatically changes.

Three Ladies with Umbrellas
(also known as The Three Graces of 1880) - Marie Bracquemond painting
Marie Bracquemond [Public domain] Wikimedia Commons

By the 1880s, the impressionism artists include her into their inner circle. Marie Bracquemond joins them in their exhibitions in 1879, 1880 and 1886 and has some of her works featured in La Vie Moderne in 1879 and 1880.

Her painting styles are evolving and becoming increasingly more vibrant in color. Part of this transformation was also under the influence of Gauguin who she met in 1886, through her husband.

Marie Bracquemond painting
Marie Bracquemond painting [Public domain] Wiki media Commons

Her Resentful Husband

As Marie Bracquemond continues to develop with the impressionists, her husband Felix is becoming more and more critical of her art. He detests the impressionism art movement and is unhappy that his wife is aligning herself with them.

According to their only son, Pierre, Felix actively resented her work and her success. Marie Bracquemond stops painting and exhibiting with the other impressionists in 1890, acquiescing to the unrelenting pressure and badgering from her husband. Felix Bracquemond, her husband, successfully buried her promising art career.

Painting entitled: Under The Lamp
Marie Bracquemond [Public domain] Wikimedia Commons

Forgotten & Ignored for Decades

Even though the impressionists highly regarded Marie Bracquemond, historians chose to ignore and forget her contributions to the Impressionism art movement. Only in the past few decades, art historians are recognizing her rightful place in the art world together with Monet, Manet and all the impressionism giants.

Unfortunately, Bracquemond’s beautiful paintings are still hardly known, even though she was part of the impressionism inner-circle.

And as her son Pierre said

“None of her hopes had ever been realized. Always there was disappointment, and yearning, for she felt a victim of injustice and her despair brought her nothing.”

Many of Braquemeond’s paintings belong to private collections and cannot be viewed by the public. However, you can view some of her artworks in the highly regarded  Musee D’Orsay and the Petit Palais in Paris.

Below are affiliate links is for products that I recommend. If you make a purchase through a link, I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

​Read About The Female Impressionists Forgotten ​By the Art Historians