Marguerite Gérard (1761–1837)

• Was a successful French painter and print-maker.

• She was the daughter of Marie Gilette and perfumer Claude Gérard.

• At eight years old she became the sister-in-law of Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
• When she was 14, she went to live with him.
• She was also the aunt of the artist Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard.
• Gérard became Fragonard's pupil in the mid-1770s and studied painting, drawing and printmaking under his tutelage.
• Gérard and Fragonard created nine etchings in 1778.
• More than 300 genre paintings, 80 portraits, and several miniatures have been documented to Gérard.
• By 1785, she had established a reputation as a gifted genre painter and was one of the first french women to do so.
• One of her paintings, The Clemency of Napoleon, was purchased by Napoleon in 1808.
• Gérard also painted at least thirty-five portraits of painters, actors, and patrons between 1787 and 1791.
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