Sophie Fremiet - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sophie Fremiet was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

Born in Dijon

Dijon

Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....

, her father was the assistant curator of the city's museum, a patron of artists and a fervent Bonapartist

Bonapartist

In French political history, Bonapartism has two meanings. In a strict sense, this term refers to people who aimed to restore the French Empire under the House of Bonaparte, the Corsican family of Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew Louis...

. Sophie was taught by Anatole Devosge

Anatole Devosge

Anatole Devosge was a French painter.Born in Dijon, he was the son of painter François Devosge and grandson of sculptor Claude François Devosge. He was one of the many artists trained in the studio of Jacques-Louis David. David's work Les derniers moments de Michel Lepeletier survives only in a...

, a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

. Her father supported the work of a young Dijon sculptor, François Rude

François Rude

François Rude was a French sculptor. He was the stepfather of Paul Cabet, a sculptor.Born in Dijon, he worked at his father's trade as a stovemaker till the age of sixteen, but received training in drawing from François Devosges, where he learned that a strong, simple contour was an invaluable...

.

In the aftermath of the second Bourbon Restoration

Bourbon Restoration

The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...

in 1815, the Fremiet family, along with many other Bonapartists, left France for Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

(now Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, then part of the newly created United Kingdom of the Netherlands

United Kingdom of the Netherlands

United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name used to refer to Kingdom of the Netherlands during the period after it was first created from part of the First French Empire and before the new kingdom of Belgium split out in 1830...

). Here Sophie studied under another French exile, her former teacher's master, Jacques-Louis David. She worked as David's copyist and exhibited her own works in Brussels and in Antwerp. In 1820, her Belle Anthia was a great success at an exhibition in Ghent

Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

On 25 July 1821, Sophie married her father's former protégé François Rude. The couple would have only one child, Amédée, who died young in 1830. In Brussels Sophie was a successful artist, receiving many commissions, including several for the former royal palace at Tervuren

Tervuren

Tervuren is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Duisburg, Tervuren, Vossem and Moorsel. On January 1, 2006, Tervuren had a total population of 20,636...

, lost in the fire that destroyed it. Her works were neoclassicist

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

in style, largely mythological, although she produced a small number of religious paintings.

In 1826, the Rude family returned to France, settling in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Here Sophie began to paint historical scenes. She served as the model for the female figure representing France in her husband's statue La Marseillaise, which forms part of the Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe

-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...

. François Rude died in 1855, and Sophie devoted the rest of her life to exhibiting and publicising her husband's work.

She died in Paris.

Further reading