ABSTRACT
A second significant point about Madame Lebrun's admission is made near the end of her account where she writes: "I gave as my reception piece Peace Bringing Back Abundance" (Plate 24.1, 1783-4). Recall that the Academy's proceedings record no reception piece, no rank. Yet this painting was, in fact, widely known as her morceau de reception. It is listed in the Salon livret and discussed throughout the Salon literature as such. Was this work the dangerous substitute, the proffering and approval of which some academic official erased? Is this the painting that is covered over, surchargee de ratures? And if it is, what larger story does the effacing conceal? Here is what I imagine it to be:
Madame Lebrun is both gifted and ambitious. The daughter of a guild painter and a hairdresser, she has become not only the court artist to Marie Antoinette, but an intimate of the noble and the accomplished. Through talent, achievement, hard work, and personal assets (beauty, grace, a lively mind) she has erljoyed considerable social mobility and has developed great self-confidence. Anticipating that the Academy doors will be opened to her, she sets out to demonstrate that she is not a mere portraitist. She plans to enter herself as a history painter, as an artist of the highest rank, the rank closed to women. (And perhaps she also plots a little revenge on her detractors.) On May 31 she sits through the Academy meeting where an entire scenario has been staged. She notices - perhaps with satisfaction, perhaps with rancor - that her enemy Pierre has chosen to absent himself from the proceedings. The corporate body accepts her by order and in pointed contrast elects Madame Guiard and chooses her reception piece(s) from among the portraits she has brought. Madame Lebrun is asked to bring her work to the next meeting. She has expected the request and on June 3 she presents to the academicians the allegory «Peace Bringing Back Abundance." Allegory, she knows, falls into the category of history painting. Seeing the work some faces set into stony grimaces, for given the protection of the queen and the order of the king, and given that they have already admitted the painter, the academicians are in no position to rifuse her work. The beautiful Madame Lebrun is laughing.
