Portrait of Geneviève Blanchot as Allegory of Painting

When this appeared at the Paris Salon of 1704, it was one of a matched pair Santerre titled 'Painting in Two Different Attitudes', the same young woman shown twice, the second version reversed as if in a mirror. She holds a painter's tools: a palette, a bundle of brushes, and the slim mahlstick used to steady the working hand. Casting a woman as the art of Painting was a familiar conceit. Less familiar was the sitter. She was Geneviève Blanchot, who joined Santerre's studio around 1692 and stayed for the rest of his life, preparing his colours and working beside him at a time when the Academy still kept the profession largely shut to women. He never married, and at his death in 1717 he made her his heir. The larger companion piece hangs today in Poitiers, while a print by Catherine Duchesne carried this Basel version to people who would never see the canvas.