Marie-Éléonore Godefroid

The Sons of Marshal Ney

Godefroid was born in Paris and was trained in the Davidian style of painting. She first studied art under her father, the royally-appointed art restorer Ferdinand-Joseph Godefroid. She would go on to become an instructor of arts and music at the Institute of Saint-Germain-en-Laye de Jeanne Campan, where young elite women of the Napoleonic period were trained. In 1795, she quit her post, however, to dedicate herself completely to painting.

Around 1805, Godefroid joined the atelier of Baron François Gérard, with whom she would later collaborate. She joined his household by 1812 as an assistant in his office and studio, as well as a companion for him, his wife, and their nephews.[1] Godefroid was also a student of Jean-Baptiste Isabey who worked in oil, aquarelle, and pastels.

Between 1800 and 1847, Godefroid exhibited portraits in nineteen exhibitions at the Paris Salon, winning medals in 1812 and 1824. Notably, in 1810, she exhibited the celebrated Portraits of the Children of Marshall Duke d'Enghien (Portrait en pied des enfans de M.gr le maréchal duc d'Elchingen), a full-length portrait of the children of Marshal Ney. The work depicts Ney's eight-year-old son Joseph Napoléon, second-oldest son Michel Louis, and two-year-old son Eugène in fancy dress.

Some of Godefroid's other exhibited works included portraits of the children of the Duke of Rovigo and Queen Hortense in 1812, portraits of the children of the Duke of Orleans in 1819 and 1822, and portraits of the Duke of Orleans and Monsieur and Madame de Guiche in 1827. She also portrayed other notable figures including Abd el-Kader, the painter Jacques-Louis David, Jeanne Campan, Germaine de Staël, Talleyrand and Marshal Lauriston, among others. She also created several portraits that were not exhibited: the portraits of Mrs. Oudenarde, the Latour Maubourg Countess, violinist Pierre Rode, and Camille Jordan, whose portrait was engraved by Mullier.

Godefroid was one of the many women artists that Empress Joséphine patronized.[1] She also worked as a copyist and reproduced several works for the French government, including the portraits of Louis XVIII and Charles X.

• Charles Gabet, Louis Charles Deschamps, Dictionnaire des artistes de l'école française au xixe siècle : peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure, dessin, lithographie et composition musicale, Paris, Vergne, 1831, p. 316-17.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marie-Éléonore Godefroid.

• Marie-Éléonore Godefroid at the base joconde.
• Tracing Marie-Éléonore Godefroid: Women’s Artistic Networks in Early Nineteenth-Century Paris from Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture by Jennifer Germann