Madame Philippe Panon Desbassayns de Richemont (Jeanne Eglé Mourgue, 1778-1855) and Her Son, Eugène (1800-1859)

Once attributed to David, this portrait is actually by his pupil, Marie Guillelmine Benoist. David taught a significant number of women artists whose works were made newly visible to the public through the Salon, which prior to the French Revolution had severely restricted submissions by women. This portrait of Jeanne Eglé Fulcrande Catherine Mourgue, called Égle, and her son was probably shown at the Salon of 1802. In 1799 she had married into the Desbassayns family, whose immense fortune came from their sugar and coffee plantations on the island of La Réunion, about 450 miles from Madagascar, where they ran a vast enslaved labor force from the late seventeenth century until the French abolition of slavery in 1848. [url href=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435650]The Met[/url]