An Elegantly Dressed Copyist at the Louvre

Louis Béroud - An Elegantly Dressed Copyist at the Louvr

Via Gandalf's Gallery where we learn:

Copying was an essential part of any 19th century artist’s education and the Musée du Louvre, unlike most academies and ateliers, was open to both men and women who studied its many masterpieces. Here, a woman in blue paints at an easel positioned in front of Leonardo’s monumental painting of the so-called Virgin of the Rocks. Sitting on a stool with a protective tarp beneath her, she raises her right arm, touching her paintbrush to the surface of the canvas, her left hand resting on her hip, and a ready rag spills out of the box of supplies open on a stool to her left. Almost all of the copyists in Béroud’s scenes are women who enjoyed access to the museum as amateur painters.