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Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists:

Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas–Robiquet
(1858–1959)

Mary Healy

To cite this article: Mary Healy (2015) Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists: Marie
Elisabeth Aimée Lucas–Robiquet (1858–1959), Women's Studies, 44:8, 1178-1199, DOI:
10.1080/00497878.2015.1078216

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 Women’s Studies, 44:1178–1199, 2015
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0049-7878 print / 1547-7045 online
DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2015.1078216

UNCOVERING FRENCH WOMEN ORIENTALIST ARTISTS:

MARIE ELISABETH AIMÉE LUCAS–ROBIQUET (1858–1959)

MARY HEALY
Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland

Presently, only one female artist, Henriette Browne (1829–1901),

has been recognized in the canon of French Orientalist art.1
Through empirical research I have recorded eighty-six, largely
ignored, French female artists whose works—for a period of their
practices—show influence of Orientalist subject matter. These
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

artists practiced in France and the Maghreb region of North Africa

between 1860 and 1962.2 Focusing on a select number of artists, I
have accumulated information on their lives and artistic careers,
their training, travels in the Maghreb, exhibitions, prestigious
awards, and critical reviews as well as reproductions of their works,
which are today dispersed around the globe and are mainly held
within private collections.3 It is both puzzling and interesting that,
today, we know little to nothing of the existence of these French
women Orientalists and their vast artistic contributions to French
art history.
This article, which is made up of two parts, will focus on
the French Orientalist Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet
(1858–1959). The first part will present Lucas-Robiquet’s artist
biography and the second will examine her Orientalist paint-
ings. This format is followed because it best represents the

Address correspondence to Mary Healy, Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies,
Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Room B6.014, Arts Building, Dublin,
Ireland. E-mail: mary.healy@tcd.ie
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at
www.tandfonline.com/gwst.
1
For research on Browne see: Lewis; Roberts and Beaulieu, Orientalism’s Interlocutors.
2
Historically, Western societies coined North African countries as being part of the
“Orient.” In the context of this study, when reference is made to “Orient” or “Oriental”
I am referring to historical meaning.
3
The eighty-six French women Orientalists are the subject of: Mary Healy, French
Women and Orientalist Art, 1860–1962: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Western Depictions of
Difference. Forthcoming, Burlington, VT and London: Ashgate Publishing Company.

1178
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1179

organic evolution of the wider project: that is, over the years,
the project evolved from an empirical (biographical) research
method to applying a grounded theory methodology to art
objects. Furthermore, Lucas-Robiquet’s artist biography is pur-
posely emphasized because she is relatively unknown to art history;
thus, her artistic narrative is essential to the building of knowledge
concerning her Orientalist practice. The second part will attempt
to position Lucas-Robiquet’s paintings in French Orientalist schol-
arship by applying gendered, French colonial and artistic theoret-
ical frameworks to her most historically noted Orientalist series:
her North African weaver paintings. This study not only aims to
bring an important French woman artist to the fore, but it also
calls for consideration of French women Orientalists through a
discussion of Lucas-Robiquet’s paintings.
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

Artist Biography

Born Marie Elisabeth Aimée Robiquet on October 18, 1858, in

Avranches, Normandy in the North of France (Figure 1), the
artist’s birth certificate states that her mother, Honorine Aimée
Doublet, was originally from Chapelle en Jugér in Normandy and
her father, Mr. Henri Sébastien Robiquet, was a retired marine
officer from Lorient in Brittany (Birth Cert. Robiquet). This sta-
tus would have placed Marie Robiquet in middle- to upper-class
French society.
As women were not permitted entry into the École Nationale
Supérieure des Beaux-Arts until 1897, in c. 1875 she turned to
the art tuition of the French artist Félix Joseph Barrias in
Paris (SSAF).4 Throughout her artistic career in France, which
spanned the period between 1880 and 1934, Lucas-Robiquet
regularly exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français
(official Salon), Salon de la Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français
(Orientalist Salon), La Société des Amis des art de Nantes, La
Société Lyonnaise des Beaux-Arts, and La Société Coloniale des Artistes
Français, and she participated in the 1906 and 1922 Expositions
Coloniales de Marseille (SSAF; SPOF; SAAN; SLBA).5 Furthermore,
she exhibited annually with the l’Union des Femmes Peintres et

4
For reference abbreviations see Works Cited.
5
See also: Bénézit ref. Lucas-Robiquet; Thornton, Women as Portrayed in Orientalist
Painting , 245.
 1180 Mary Healy
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

FIGURE 1 Sarony, 680 Broadway, NY, Carte de Visite of Marie Aimée Lucas-Robiquet
(1858–1959), c.1885, Sepia photograph on card, 12 × 6 cm, Private collection.

Sculpteurs from 1892 to 1890 and once again in 1908 (Sanchez

1261).
Lucas-Robiquet enjoyed a thriving artistic profession. For
over fifty years she exhibited at the official Salon where she was
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1181

held in high regard and rewarded for her artistic endeavors by

its juries. She received a Mention Honorable at the Salon in 1882; a
Troisième Médaille at the Salon of 1894 and a Deuxième Médaille at the
Salon of 1905—after which she received Hors Concours (SSAF). The
artist was awarded Statut de Sociétaire from the Salon of 1909 and,
finally, in 1922 she received the supreme award of Chevalier de la
Légion d’Honneur from the French Government for outstanding
artistic achievements and endeavors (LdH).
With regard to her relationship with the official Salon, Lucas-
Robiquet exhibited almost one hundred paintings at the Salon
between 1880 and 1934—demonstrating dedicated loyalty to the
Société (SSAF). Defining her position as an Orientalist in France,
the artist exhibited at the Orientalist Salon in Paris from 1895 to
1914. It was here that her paintings were exhibited with those
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

of her Orientalist predecessors Eugène Delacroix and Théodore

Chassériau, as well as with her Orientalist contemporaries Pierre-
Auguste Renoir, Étienne Dinet, and Léon Carré (SPOF). On cat-
egorizing the subject matter of Lucas-Robiquet’s Salon exhibited
works, it is possible to determine that her artistic career can be
broken into three periods of painterly style: her French portrai-
ture period, which spanned the decade between 1880 and 1890;
her Orientalist period, which spanned the years between 1891 and
1909; and her French and Breton genre period (with contin-
ued portrait work), which spanned the period between 1910 and
1934. This study focuses on Lucas-Robiquet’s Orientalist period,
specifically her paintings from Algeria and Tunisia.
During the artist’s lifetime Algeria was under French rule,
and the French era in Tunisia commenced in 1881 with a pro-
tectorate that subsequently ended in 1956 with independence.
Although French citizens could travel to and from the colony
freely, it would not have been condoned nor considered fitting
for a woman of Lucas-Robiquet’s elevated social class to embark
on such travels alone (Reynolds 83). She did so as a married
woman: on September 29, 1891, in the seventeenth district of
Paris, Marie Robiquet married Lieutenant Maurice Edouard Louis
Henri Lucas (Marriage Cert. Robiquet/Lucas; Military Lucas 2).
The artist’s husband was born in Constantine, Algeria, on
June 24, 1862.6 Following his training with the French military,

6
Maurice Lucas’s father, Edouard Lucas, was a third regiment Captain of Algerian
fighters, a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur , and he resided with his family in Constantine,
 1182 Mary Healy

Lucas served in Algeria for the entirety of his military career,

reaching the rank of Capitain of the ninety-third infantry regiment
in Algeria in 1894 (Military Lucas 2). Following their marriage in
1891, Lucas-Robiquet moved to Algeria with her new husband,
where she became part of the Pied Noir society (Military Lucas
4).7 The following year, in 1892, one witnesses the beginning of
Lucas-Robiquet’s Orientalist subject matter at the Salons of Paris.
The artist’s Orientalist works are by far the most critically
acclaimed of her oeuvre; for example, she exhibited The Weavers
(Arab interior in Constantine) at the official Salon exhibition of
1894 and Arab interior in Ourellal, Biskra at the Orientalist Salon
of 1895 (Figures 2–3). In March 1895, an engraved reproduc-
tion of The Weavers (Arab Interior in Constantine) appeared on the
front page of Le Monde Illustré. The review, which accompanied
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

the reproduction, reads:

This canvas, which is remarkable and highly remarked upon, got a medal
for its author [Salon reference], who stands out amongst our best modern
Oriental painters. Mme. Lucas Robiquet, of whom we [le Monde Illustré]
have already reproduced several pieces of work, experiences, at this time,
the highest success at the Exhibition Durand-Ruel, with her famous works
of the Arabic women of Ourlat [sic. Ourellal], and our readers will be
pleased with us for having once more devoted our time, thanks to our
artistic reproduction, to the masterly and virile talent of this young and so
personal artist.8

Referring here to Lucas-Robiquet’s exhibited works in both the

official Salon of 1894 and the Orientalist Salon of 1895, art
critic Olivier Merson not only expressed the opinion that this
artist stood out amongst the best of France’s modern Orientalist

Algeria. Maurice Lucas entered the French Military in 1882 as a student in the special
military school of Algeria: he served in Tunisia from August 3, 1885, to July 29, 1886. Birth
Cert. Lucas; Military Lucas 2.
7
The nineteenth-century term Pied Noir (meaning “black feet”) was used to describe
French and other European settlers and their descendants who resided in colonial Algeria.
8
Beaux-Arts: Le Tissage (Intérieur arabe à Constantine), tableau de Mme. Lucas-
Robiquet.—Cette toile, très remarquable et trés remarquèe, a valu une médaille à son
auteur, qui a conquis une place très à part parmi nos meilleurs peintres orientalistes mod-
ernes. Mme. Lucas-Robiquet, dont nous avons déjà reproduit plusieurs oeuvres, obtient,
en ce moment, le plus vif success à ‘Exposition Durand-Ruel, avec son grand tableau des
femmes arabes à Ourlat, et nos lecteurs nous sauront gré d’avoir une fois de plus consacré,
grace à notre artistique reproduction, le talent magistral et comme viril de la jeune et si
personnelle artiste; Merson 1–2.
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1183
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

FIGURE 2 Marie Lucas-Robiquet (1858–1959), Le Tissage: Intérieur Arabe à

Constantine (Algérie) [The Weavers: Arab Interior in Constantine, (Algeria)],
c.1894, Oil on Canvas, 148.3 × 119.9 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen,
France. Image courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen.

painters but also that she experienced immense success with her
works at the Orientalist Salon that year. Also, Olivier Merson refers
to Lucas-Robiquet’s works as “virile”—this interesting use of words
leads one to contemplate the relationship between gender and
 1184 Mary Healy

the higher forms of art production during this period; that is, a
woman had to be referred to as “virile” in order to be masterly.9
Demonstrating the appreciation the international art world
held for Lucas-Robiquet, in 1895, critic René Morot stated in the
Parisian Illustrated Review, New York, that

Mme. Lucas-Robiquet merits a very distinguished place among our

Orientalists; her open-air studies are vibrating with light and sun . . . [she]
has confined herself almost exclusively to reproductions of Algerian or
African life. She has not shown what she would do in the genre called
“Parisian,” but few Parisian artists reach her freedom, her vigor, her clean-
ness in very sunny scenes so full of attraction, of poetry, which belong to
an artist of the highest order. (Morot 59–60)

The same year as Merson’s and Morot’s Salon reviews, at the

Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

age of thirty-three, Capitain Lucas died during military service

in Algeria, leaving his wife Marie Elisabeth, aged thirty-seven, a
widow and without children.10 This event would have dramati-
cally changed Lucas-Robiquet’s female position in French society
as, during this time, widows were presented with certain rights
and had more social freedom than married women (McMillan 37,
184). Facts indicate that the artist remained in North Africa until
1904, during which time she painted the peoples and cultures of
the Maghreb—all the while sending her completed paintings to
Paris for annual exhibit and sale.11
In 1905, Lucas-Robiquet took up residency at 11 Rue Brown-
Séquard, Paris (SSAF 1905). After this time her exhibited Salon
paintings began to contain mixed subject matter inspired not only
by the Maghreb, but also Brittany and portrait painting. The artist
exhibited her final Orientalist work at the Salon of 1914. Following
this date her exhibited works were comprised solely of subject
matter from Brittany as well as portrait paintings.
Lucas-Robiquet’s last recorded Parisian address is 9 Rue
Brown-Séquard, Paris where she lived from 1910 to 1934—and

9
The status of women in late nineteenth-century French art will be explored in the
next section.
10
Military Lucas 4.
11
Between 1891–1904 Lucas Robiquet held addresses in Algeria and Tunisia, her
recorded Salon address during this time was Chez (care of) M. Pollard, 28 Rue Bassano,
Paris.
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1185

the latter date coincides with her final exhibition at the official
Salon (SSAF). On June 21, 1949, after the devastation of World
War II, the artist was awarded a monthly widow’s pension from
the French military. This pension was made payable to her home
in the Var region of the south of France (Military Lucas 7). The
artist’s death certificate is filed in the Municipal Office of Saint
Raphael, France. Stated on the certificate is that Lucas-Robiquet
“died at 11 a.m. on 21 December 1959 at 25 Avenue Georges
Clemenceau, Saint Raphael” and family such as children or sib-
lings are not mentioned (Death Cert. Lucas Robiquet). A single
reference to family is made on the artist’s death certificate and
it states that Lucas-Robiquet was the widow of Maurice Lucas.
This information shows that the artist never divorced or had chil-
dren, and that she did not remarry after Lucas’s death in 1895.
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

Also stated on the death certificate was that Marie Lucas-Robiquet

“died without profession.” Such a statement shows that since her
retirement from the Salons of Paris in 1934 Lucas-Robiquet’s
once prominent artistic career faded into the shadows of art
history.

North African Weaver Paintings

In the context of art history, Orientalism refers to Western artists’

depictions of the “Orient.” Orientalist art flourished among
Europe artists during the long nineteenth century, particularly
in France, Britain, and Italy. There was no official “school” of
Orientalism. Rather, artists were defined as Orientalists or linked
to the movement via their “Oriental” subject matter.12 Lucas-
Robiquet’s Orientalist subject matter varies between scenes of
children, landscapes and plein air genre scenes, market scenes,
portraiture work, and military scenes. I will focus on the artist’s
interest in North African Berber13 women as weavers and “makers”
in the interior domestic setting (Figures 2–5).

12
For a detailed discussion about Orientalism in art history see Thornton, The
Orientalists 4–17.
13
Berbers are tribal peoples whose recorded place of origin is North Africa. There are
many diverse tribes in Berber communities and they speak various languages.
 1186 Mary Healy
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

FIGURE 3 Marie Lucas-Robiquet (1858–1959), Intérieur Arabe à Ourellal, Biskra

[Arab Interior in Ourellal, Biskra], 1892, Oil on canvas, 44.8 × 52.6 cm, Private
collection. Image courtesy of Artcurial, Paris.

Arab Interior in Ourellal, Biskra (Figure 3), exhibited at the

official Salon of 1892, is the first known work which shows Lucas-
Robiquet’s interest in Berber female craftwork in the Maghreb.
The painting depicts five Berber women from the Oasis of
Ourellal, Algeria—these women are actively at work within a
private domestic space. The Berber woman who sits to the
center-right of the painting is preparing couscous in a large bowl;
the sitter on the far right is preparing wool for weaving, and the
woman who stands in the center of the painting is drawing water
(perhaps for the preparation of couscous or for the cleaning of
wool). The preparation of wool involves three phases: cleaning
(or scouring), carding (combing and separating of wool fibers),
and the spinning processes. The woman depicted in this painting
is spinning wool.
Traditionally, Berber crafts such as weaving are handed down
from generation to generation (or from woman to woman);
Lucas-Robiquet paid attention to this tradition. That is, the
young woman standing in The Weavers: Arab Interior in Constantine
(Figure 2) and the young woman in the center background
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1187

of Arab Interior in Ourellal, Biskra (Figure 3), whose dispositions

and clothing seem to be that of much younger girls, perhaps
represents this transference of craft from elder to younger.14
Lucas-Robiquet exhibited Weavers in Gabés (Tunisia) at the
1906 official Salon (Figure 4). Again, within this painting the artist
has portrayed Berber women weaving in a domestic space. The
painting depicts four Berber women, this time from Tunisia: on
the right, two women are weaving on a vertical-loom; another
woman sits in the background behind the loom as she prepares
wool for weaving, and the fourth woman, who is the more domi-
nant figure, stands in the center of the painting holding a child.
In this instance, due to the presence of a child, the artist has
depicted not only a space of female economic production, but
also that of family.
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

Questioning why Lucas-Robiquet chose to paint such interior

Orientalist subject matter, one important factor was her own artis-
tic training, practices, and social position as a woman in France
during the late nineteenth century. As previously mentioned,
women were not permitted entry into the École des Beaux-Arts until
1897. Prior to this date French women artists were trained through
private tutelage or through less prestigious schools (Wein). For
example, as stated in Lucas-Robiquet’s biographical details, the
artist was trained through private art tuition in c. 1875. Denying
women artists entry into the most competent artistic institution
in France limited their access to mandatory life drawing classes,
which attempted to apply limitations on their artistic growth,
which resulted in fewer commissions and, inevitably, their elim-
ination from the higher genre of history painting. Moreover,
traditionally, women were encouraged to paint genre scenes of
everyday life in the interior, usually of other women (Garb)—and
here we might find just one influential factor as to why Lucas-
Robiquet chose to paint all-female, interior Orientalist scenes.
Positioning these weaver paintings in line with other French
Orientalist works, examining the most prominent Orientalist
paintings today, we can see, firstly, that they were created by

14
Using Lucas-Robiquet’s paintings, I created a geographical map of her travels in the
Maghreb. Following this map, I conducted field work in the Saharan area of Southern
Tunisia, which brought me to the Berber village of Chenini. There I had the pleasure
of meeting Meriame Mgadminia, who is a traditional Berber weaver. I sincerely thank
Meriame for teaching me about the different processes involved in traditional Berber
weaving. For further information about Berber weaving techniques see: Grasshoff 81–89.
 1188 Mary Healy
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

FIGURE 4 Antique postcard reproduction of: Marie Lucas-Robiquet (1858-

1959), Tisseuses à Gabès, Tunisie [Weavers in Gabes, Tunisia], 1905, 15.2 × 10 cm
(postcard), Private collection.

highly respected male artists and, secondly, that the eroticized and
stereotypical view showing Berber and Arab women as “objects” of
erotic pleasure is dominant within their subject matter. As advo-
cated by Edward Said, Orientalism is a way of coming to terms
with the “Orient” and it is based on the “Orient’s” special place
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1189

in European Western experience (Said 1–5). Produced through

the Western male gaze, many established Orientalist works per-
sonify this European “special place” through mythological and
fantasized scenes of the “Orient” as in the body of the harem
woman, or the odalisque, who is Othered—through which two
forms of Otherness or objecthood come together: the sexual and
the cultural.
Historically, the harem was a female-segregated quarter set
within the Muslim household, which was forbidden to the eyes of
men who were outside the immediate family unit. Shirley Foster
states that the original function of the interior harem was as a
social space where women could assemble and talk (Foster 7).
As described by Melman, the harem (meaning sacred and for-
bidden) was not a utopian place of erotic sexual pleasures; it was
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

and still is a segregated and sacred space for Muslim women and
children (Melman 73). The act of Purdah 15 would have forced
male artists to recreate their depictions of North African women
through the use of European models dressed in “Oriental” garb.
For this reason the traditional European classical female form and
its idealized view are evident in the interior works of many rec-
ognized male painters—such as in paintings by Lucas-Robiquet’s
Orientalist predecessors Delacroix and Émile Vernet-Lecomte,
and her Orientalist contemporaries Léon François Comerre
and Léon Cauvy. Cauvy created magnificent genre scenes of
women in the Algerian exterior; however, when he painted
women in the Algerian interior he reverted to the traditional
Western erotic stereotype: for example, as seen in The Concert,
1926.
Although I move entirely away from stereotypical represen-
tations derived from Western readings of the Ottoman harem,
this is a fascinating angle from which to consider the interior
weaver paintings of Lucas-Robiquet. Her paintings depict North
African Berber women in their private domestic spaces, a subject
matter that was not easily accessible to male Orientalists. That
is, although most Berber women do not veil, due to the Arab
conquest of North Africa in the seventh century and the assimi-
lation of Islam into Berber life, Berber women were (and in many

15
Purdah is a term used in Muslim countries used to describe the practice of isolating
women from contact with men outside the immediate family unit.
 1190 Mary Healy

Berber families today still are) subject to Islamic social and reli-
gious restrictions which prohibit contact between unrelated men
and woman (Becker 85). Therefore, like the Ottoman harem inte-
riors, many domestic female Berber interiors were also not easily
accessible to European male artists. Because she was a woman,
Lucas-Robiquet would have had easier access to the domestic
lives of Berber women. This contact would have enabled her to
paint her interior Berber scenes from life, which, in turn, per-
mitted her to translate to France her observations and painted
representations of Berber women in their segregated, everyday
settings.
As established by Melman, Mary Roberts, and Reina Lewis,
mid-nineteenth-century women traveler writers and artists (e.g.,
the French painter Henriette Browne and the English painter
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

Mary Alidade Walker) provided alternative, Western gendered

views of segregated Ottoman female spaces. These Western por-
trayals complicate Orientalist scholarship through visual dia-
logue of gendered and cultural difference (see Melman; Lewis;
Roberts). On presenting the weaver paintings of Lucas-Robiquet,
I shift such discussions to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century French colonial era in North Africa—as well as to a
Naturalist Orientalist subject matter that moves away from rep-
resentations of upper-class Ottoman harems and instead depicts
North African tribal cultures. When considering Lucas-Robiquet’s
weaver paintings, it can be argued that she attempted to shift the
Western perception of North African women from passive erotic
“objects” to active “makers” of craft.
Interior in Beni-Ounif (South Oran) [Algeria] c. 1909 (Figure 5)
is another of Lucas-Robiquet’s beautifully executed scenes where
four Berber female sitters are depicted weaving in the interior
space. One of the weavers has a child strapped to her back,
which, when considered in relation to the foregoing, again sug-
gests a space that combines active female Berber labor with
familial activity. The women to the left of the painting are
wearing traditional Berber attire and jewelry, combined with
the Arab haik.16 Lucas-Robiquet has again highlighted female

16
The assimilation of Arab garb into Berber cultures was/is common in the Maghreb.
The name of this white female covering varies from country to country: in Algeria it is
known as the haik, in Tunisia it is known as the sefsari. Khalifa; Fadwa 15.
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1191
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

FIGURE 5 Marie Lucas-Robiquet (1858–1959), Intérieur à Beni-Ounif (Sud-

Oranais) [Interior Beni Ounif (South Oran)] c.1909, Oil on canvas, 121.9 ×
166.1 cm, Private collection. Image courtesy of Tajan, Paris.

Berber craft production in the Maghreb; however, this time,

the painting is divided equally into the two key phases of
weaving: the spinning of wool and the weaving of wool on a
wooden vertical loom. The two young Algerian girls to the right
of the painting are preparing the wool and spinning it onto
spools; the wool is then fed to the weavers for weaving on the
vertical-loom.
Lucas-Robiquet has used a widely practiced method in order
to lead the viewer through her painting. First, the viewer’s eye is
led to the young female wool spinners who are situated to the
right of the canvas: one is dressed in vivid red clothing that clev-
erly draws the eye, and the other, through outstretched arm and
frontal position, presents to us their task—that is, they are prepar-
ing or spinning wool for weaving. Next the viewer’s eye travels to
acknowledge the weavers behind the vertical loom as well as the
loom itself. And, finally, the viewer becomes aware of the less dom-
inant details in the painting, such as the young baby wrapped to
the back of the weaver, the drum which hangs on the right wall, or
 1192 Mary Healy

the khlal 17 in the weaver’s hand. Showing her painterly skill, the
artist has not only presented her perspective on Algerian women
in a domestic labor space, but she has also attempted to lead the
viewer through the traditional processes of Berber weaving that
are associated with North Africa.
The artist’s practice of Naturalist painting is excellent in this
work—not only in the presentation of subject matter but also in
the application of paint. Émile Zola defined the Naturalist as one
who depicted his (or her) subject matter through the method of
scientific analysis or observation and, as a result, represented his
(or her) sitters interconnecting with their environment.18 Traits
of the artist’s Naturalist brush work are evident in Interior in
Beni-Ounif (South Oran): strokes move from the detailed (sitters’
features and hands, the thick layering of material which constructs
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

their clothing or jewlery) to impasto (the walls and floor). It is

wonderful to see the artist’s meticulous detail when painting the
vertical loom; her use of light illuminates the vertical strands of
wool as well as the ropes used to tie the handmade apparatus
together. This striking Naturalist handling of paint, light, shadow,
and subject matter gives the viewer a sense of the atmospheric ele-
ments surrounding the weavers, while also suggesting an analogy
between painting and weaving. Again we are reminded of Morot’s
words when he stated that “few Parisian artists reach her [Lucas-
Robiquet’s] freedom, her vigor, her cleanness in very sunny scenes
so full of attraction, of poetry, which belong to an artist of the
highest order” (Morot 59–60). Furthermore, this painting also
encapsulates the words of Merson when he stated in 1895 that
Lucas-Robiquet had a “masterly” talent (Merson 1–2).
At this juncture, it is interesting to bring back into focus a
well-known male Orientalist contemporary of Lucas-Robiquet’s,
Étienne Dinet. Noted for his ethnographic paintings depicting life
in Algeria, in 1904 Dinet officially made the oasis town of Bou-
Saâda in Algeria his second home, and in 1913, in an attempt
to fully integrate himself into Islamic life, Dinet converted to
Islam. In contrast to some of his modern male counterparts of the

17
Resembling a large comb, the khlal is placed between the strands of wool on the
loom: the weaver uses it to beat and tighten the knots on the loom.
18
For discussion on Zola’s identification of peoples with place and the human act as a
result of their preexisting and present environment see Krell 83–98.
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1193

time, such as Henri Matisse and Léon Carré, Dinet’s Orientalist

paintings are, like Lucas-Robiquet’s, exceptionally conservative in
style.
The objective of ethnographic practices in fin-de-siècle
Orientalism was to capture the image of “native” people whose
ways of life were being eliminated by European colonization and
modernizations (Peltre 56–58; Benjamin 97). Dinet’s approach
to his Algerian subject matter, for example in Prayer at Dawn
and Ouled Naïl Woman, was considered different to that of other
Orientalist painters because his understanding of Algerian cul-
tures, Islam, and Arab language informed his subject matter
(Benjamin 92). Lucas-Robiquet’s approach was different because
her French female artistic training and social standing informed
her interest in all-female North African subject matter.
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

Looking comparatively at Lucas-Robiquet’s and Dinet’s paint-

ings of Berber women, it is evident that in many of his paintings
Dinet transferred the essence of the erotic interior harem scene to
the exterior Algerian space. For example: Bather in the Palmery by
Dinet (Figure 6) depicts a Berber woman standing in an Algerian
landscape. The Berber women portrayed by Dinet in Bou-Saâda,
particularly where the subjects are nude, are generally assumed to
be dancers of the Ouled Naïl tribes.19 It has been determined by
Ruth Roded that French travel literature from the mid-nineteenth
century, such as that of General Eugène Daumas (1845) and
Eugene Fromentin (1857), bring to light the Western image (or
stereotype) of Ouled Naïl women as dancers and courtesans, and
suggests that they were located in and around Bou-Saâda (Roded
335). The Ouled Naïl women enjoyed a degree of freedom and,
according to Roded, there is debate as to whether they were
“dignified” courtesans or simply just liberated women (Roded
325–359). The debate of courtesanship aside, Ouled Naïl women
had a degree of social freedom, and this explains Dinet’s access to
his Berber female models.
In Bather in the Palmery, Dinet’s Ouled Naïl model is por-
trayed partially nude, with a long length of material draped over
her head. This material frames the figure’s upper body in dec-
orative motif—all the while covering the lower part of her body
from the viewer’s gaze. The woman appears to be wrapping the

19
The Ouled Naïl women of Bou-Saâda posed for many male artists. For a detailed
account of Dinet’s encounters with the Ouled Naïl see Benjamin 92–103.
 1194 Mary Healy
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

FIGURE 6 Étienne Dinet (1861–1929), Baigneuse dans la Palmeraie [Bather in

the Palmery], Date unknown (c. 1900–1910), Oil on canvas, 71 × 59 cm, Private
collection. Image courtesy of Gros et Delettrez, Commissaires Priseurs.

long length of material around her body as if dressing herself.

Dinet uses scarves and material coverings (or dividers) in many
of his exterior female nudes, for example Raoucha, 1901 or Bather
by Moonlight. This act of partially covering his Ouled Naïl female
models and creating a barrier between them and the viewer’s gaze,
engages with the fantasmatic Western ideas that were traditionally
placed on harem women by some earlier Orientalist painters.
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1195

Meyda Yegenoglu states that “Erecting a barrier between the

body of the Oriental woman and the Western gaze . . . seems
to place her [the Oriental woman’s] body out of reach of the
Western gaze” (Yeğenoğlu 39). Although Dinet allows the viewer
to gaze on his model’s exposed upper body, the painter has still
placed a barrier of coverings between the voyeur and the figure’s
lower body, making her partially “out of reach” to the viewer.
Therefore Dinet’s bather paintings are a modern adaptation of
the conventional Western harem fantasy. That is, through his mod-
ern Orientalist approach of painting en plein air , Dinet moved
the fundamental nature of stereotypical, interior harem scenes
into the site of modern landscape. Dinet continued to echo the
Western notion of the erotic “Orient,” in turn, he preserved the
stereotype of “Oriental” women as the Other and transferred it
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

into the modern Orientalist epoch.

Conversely, Lucas-Robiquet observed and painted North
African women in a very different way to Dinet. The fantasized
topic of the “erotic Orient” was never depicted by Lucas-Robiquet.
Rather, through her weaver series she showed North African
women as active makers of craft. This reveals that the artist most
likely considered weaving to be an important traditional—and,
perhaps, a potentially progressive—component in some North
African women’s lives. It is thought-provoking to consider the sim-
ilarity between Lucas-Robiquet’s observation of fin-de-siècle North
African women and that made by the first Tunisian government
about women, art, and female industry in the country post 1956.
During the ten-year period after independence from France,
the Tunisian Republic recognized and embraced weaving as
an important signifier of female artistic identity, economy, and
modernity.20 Habib Bourguiba, the first President of the Republic
of Tunisia, declared reforms in family law that sought to elevate
women’s social status and ensure female participation in nation
building. According to Jessica Gerschultz, Bourguibist policies
encouraged women to enter the labor force via the expansion
of weaving industries and further development of female art and
craft practices:

20
For a detailed discussion on weaving as a symbol of female modernity during the
early years of the Tunisian Republic, see Gerschultz 31–51.
 1196 Mary Healy

Bourguiba positioned changing gender roles at the forefront of Tunisian

modernity . . . women’s weaving practices, considered to embody all the
cultural signifiers of Tunisian “traditions,” served as a springboard for
modernizing female labor and artistic production. (43)

Between 1892 and 1909, via her detailed series, Lucas-Robiquet

recognized and repeatedly painted active female weaving prac-
tices across Tunisia and Algeria. The artist’s close attention to
the subject suggests that she may have considered weaving to be
a catalyst for female modernity in North Africa—a concept that
was also embraced by the Tunisian Republic much later in the
twentieth century. While Lucas-Robiquet’s favored female subject
matter focuses on Berber women as active makers and producers
of carpets in the familial private sphere, Dinet’s favored all-female
subject matter continued to engage with Western erotic stereotype
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

by drawing on the idea of Berber women as mere entertain-

ers and courtesans. Of course, Dinet also focused on the art of
dance as performed by the women of the Ouled Naïl. However, in
nineteenth-century writing and painting, the art of the Ouled Naïl
dance held an association with the erotic: Dinet clearly engaged
with this erotic association. Such comparison between Lucas-
Robiquet and Dinet shows that gender was an influential function
in the making of Orientalist art. Lucas-Robiquet’s difference as an
Orientalist painter is situated in her treatment of female subject
matter: difference which was informed by the artist’s own female
specific training in art as well as her social position in France.
Thus, Lucas-Robiquet’s presence in art history alters discourses
of fin-de-siècle French Orientalism.
During her lifetime, Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet
was a highly respected and accomplished French artist whose oeu-
vre was much admired by Salon hierarchy and French government
officials, as well as by certain art critics in France and the United
States. Fifty-six years after the death of the artist the art world has
all but forgotten her important artistic contributions to French
Orientalism. Thus, I endeavor to open a new discourse surround-
ing her life-narrative, artistic career, and oeuvre. I conclude my
study with this affirmation: until we acknowledge the artistic con-
tributions of women, we cannot appreciate the French Orientalist
movement, or any other art movement, in its true fullness.
 Uncovering French Women Orientalist Artists 1197

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr. Catherine Lawless, Trinity

College Dublin & Professor Carol Armstrong, Yale University;
Professor Anthony McElligott & Dr. Ciara Breathnach, University
of Limerick; Professor Mary Roberts, University of Sydney;
Dominique Lobstein, Musée d’Orsay; Vincent Tuchais, Archives
de Paris; Meriame Mgadminia, Chenini, Tunisia; Abdallah Khalifa,
Sousse, Tunisia; Dominic Milmo Penny, Dublin; Admiral F.
Guelton, Chateau de Vincennes, Paris; Nelson Guerra, Société
de Artistes Français, Paris; Gros et Delettrez, Paris; Tajan, Paris;
Artcurial, Paris and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, and the
funding bodies who made this research possible.
Women's Studies 2015.44:1178-1199.

Funding

The Irish Research Council funded this research 2010–2011 and

2012–2014; The Fulbright Commission funded this research
2010–2011, and the University of Limerick funded this research
2008–2010.

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