Adélaïde Lenoir (1769 – 1832) - Euterpe Playing The Lyre

Adélaïde Binart, future Madame Lenoir, received her first teaching in painting in the workshop of Gabriel François Doyen. There, she notably met her husband, Alexandre Lenoir, famous for his work at the Museum of French Monuments.

Specializing in portraiture, Adélaïde Lenoir made her public debut at the Salon of 1795. Absent from the 1796 edition, she did not reappear until 1799 for three consecutive years. Absent again at the Salon of 1802, she joined the workshop of the famous Jean-Baptiste Regnault at that time. She then set about correcting her faults, improving her technique and embellishing her manner in view of the Salon of 1804. Certainly pushed by Regnault, she intended a history painting for this exhibition. Through this ambition, Lenoir places itself in the continuity of female talents, coming from Regnault's workshop, having met with success in the genre in previous years (Pauline Auzou and even more Angélique Mongez).
At the Salon of 1804, Lenoir exhibited the only historical painting of his career, an Euterpe against a landscape background. Looking at this work, it is interesting to underline the very clear progression of the artist in his art; notably in the execution of the brushed landscape, already implemented in a Portrait of a Young Girl exhibited in 1799, as well as the particularly clever drapery. In addition, Lenoir's Euterpe combines correct body proportions and naturalness in attitude. The artist thus demonstrates his mastery of anatomy, most certainly acquired through the study of the living model which he apparently lacked before.

As for the pictorial choices implemented in the Euterpe, they seem to have been thought out and developed within Regnault's workshop itself, in consultation with the artist's comrades. We are tempted to recognize in Euterpe's physiognomy and attitude an early work by Pauline Auzou, produced almost ten years earlier, representing Flora. Even more, the acid color of Euterpe's clothing, inspired by the 17th century, is found in a second historical painting from Regnault's workshop and exhibited at the same Salon. These are Calypso receiving Telemachus and Mentor on his island, directed by Pierre Louis Edme Pellier. The chromatic connection with Parisian atticism is reinforced in Lenoir's work by the very subject of the painting. By representing the muse of music, it assumes a connection with the panels painted by Lesueur which decorated the cabinet of the Muses at the Hôtel Lambert.