Marie-Geneviève Bouliar

1763 – 1825

Active in: France
Alternate names: Marie-Geneviève Bouliard

Biography

Marie-Geneviève Bouliar was active in Paris, showing her work regularly at the Salon. She was a student of Joseph-Benoît Suvée, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Joseph Duplessis, and her oeuvre consists primarily of portraits and history paintings. One of her most significant works, Aspasia, a self-portrait, was exhibited at the Salon in 1795. She died in Saône-et-Loire during a visit to the château d’Arcy.

Selected Works

A man, a woman, and two very young children, all with light skin and hair, are seated together on a red velvet couch. The man wears a green coat and looks at the woman seated next to him, with one arm around the shoulder of a young child standing near his knee. The woman is wearing a white dress and a large white bow in her hair, and she is holding an infant in her lap as she looks out at the viewer.

Marie-Geneviève Bouliar, Portrait de Monsieur Olive, trésorier des États de Bretagne, avec sa famille, 1791-92. Oil on canvas. Musée des beaux-arts, Nantes

A woman with light skin and dark blonde or light brown hair is shown from the chest up. She wears a white shawl tied around her shoulders, and looks slightly away from the viewer.

Marie-Geneviève Bouliar, Self-Portrait, 1792. Oil on canvas, 55.5 x 46 cm. Norton Simon Art Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon, M.1979.43.P

A seated, light-skinned woman with dark hair and wearing a white dress with gold clasps at the shoulders is holding up a gold hand mirror to look into. She is wrapped in a long red cloth, and the shoulder of her dress has slipped down and exposed her breast. In one hand she holds a written document, and around the room behind her are flowers.

Marie-Geneviève Bouliar, Aspasia, 1794. Oil on canvas, 123 x 127. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras

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Selected works

Circle

Student of
Joseph-Benoît Suvée

Student of
Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Student of
Joseph Duplessis

Bibliography

A Checklist of Painters ca. 1200–1976 Represented in the Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London. London: Mansell, 1978.

Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Munich: Saur, 1992.

Bénézit, Emmanuel. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays. Paris: Gründ, 1976.

“Bouliard, Marie Geneviève.” Oxford Art Online. https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00024358.

Gaze, Delia, ed. Dictionary of Women Artists. London: Fitzroy, 1997.

Jackall, Yuriko. “Recovering the Work of Marie-Geneviève Bouliar (1763–1825): The Invention of Self in Revolutionary France.” Cahiers de l’histoire de l’art 7 (2009): 48–60.

Jouin, Henry. “Le musée des portraits d’artistes.” Novelles Archives de l’Art Français (1885): 169–75.

“Marie-Geneviève Bouliard.” RKD. https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/11420.

Maison, Françoise. “Marie-Geneviève Bouliar.” In Peinture française, 1770–1830, 46. Paris, 1975.

Royalists to Romantics: Women Artists from the Louvre, Versailles, and Other French National Collections. Washington, DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2012.

Sutherland Harris, Ann, and Linda Nochlin. Women Artists, 1550–1950. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976.

Theime, Ulrich, and Felix Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig: Seemann, 1907–50.

Tourneux, Maurice. “Une exposition retrospective d’art féminin.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1908): 290–300.