Marie-Guillemine Benoist, born Marie-Guillemine de Laville-Leroux (December 18, 1768 – October 8, 1826), was a French neoclassical, historical and genre painter.
She was born in Paris, the daughter of a civil servant. Her training as an artist began in 1781 under Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and she entered Jacques-Louis David's atelier in 1786 along with her sister Marie-Élisabeth Laville-Leroux.
Her work, reflecting the influence of Jacques-Louis David, tended increasingly toward history painting by 1795. In 1800, she exhibited Portrait d'une négresse in the Salon. Six years previously, slavery had been abolished, and this image became a symbol for women's emancipation and black people's rights.
Her career was harmed by political developments, however, when her husband, the convinced royalist count Benoist, was nominated in the Conseil d'État during the post-1814 monarchy come-back called the Bourbon Restoration. Despite being at the height of her popularity, she has to abandon her career, both painting and exposing, due to her devoir de réserve and the strongly enforced conservatism of the reactionary regime. - wikipedia
