Louise ABBEMA ✿

Louise Abbéma (1853-1927) was a French painter, sculptor, and designer of the Belle Époque. Academic painter of the Belle Époque, she was a pupil of Charles Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran.

She became famous very early, twenty-two, for portraying Sarah Bernhardt, her companion. She then exhibited her work regularly at the "Salon of French Artists" until 1926. In 1881 she received an Honorable Mention from the "Salon" and was also decorated with the Legion d'Honneur in 1906.

She also worked for various art magazines and illustrated René Maizeroy's Il Mare. At the beginning of the new century he began frequenting Madame Lemaire's salon where he met the eccentric dandy Robert de Montesquiou with whom, perhaps, he attempted to have a relationship, despite having the reputation of not having any particular interest in men and of being a staunch feminist.

She is especially known for her portraits of high society ladies. Her style is entirely conventional, but very pleasant and low-key. Louise Abbéma, moreover, seems to have never taken into consideration any of the great innovative currents which characterized her era and which were instead the foundation of contemporary art. She died in Paris in 1927, aged 74 and is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.