Marie-Denise Villers (1774 – 1821)

• Was a French painter who specialized in portraits.
• It was In the Paris Salon of 1799 that she met the artist Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, and also began to take painting lessons with François Gérard and Jacques-Louis David.
• In 1794, she married an architecture student, Michel-Jean-Maximilien Villers.
• Her husband supported her art, during a time when many women were forced to give up professional art work after marriage.
• Her life between the time of her last dated painting (1814) and her death in 1821 remains unknown.
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