Name Marie Robiquet | ||
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Died 1959, Saint-Raphael, France | ||
Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet (1858–1959) was a French Orientalist artist who worked within the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français. Lucas-Robiquet enjoyed over forty years of artistic honour and success within the highly acclaimed Paris Salon de la Société des Artistes Français throughout her lifetime, but after her death her works and legacy faded from public view. A rediscovery and resurgence in popularity of her oeuvre occurred in the early 21st century.
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Life
Lucas-Robiquet was recognized for her paintings of African and Algerian subjects. The 1897 edition of Parisian Illustrated Review cites her outdoor studies for a "wise tendency toward reasonable impressionism" by "an artist of the highest order."
Works by Lucas-Robiquet have sold well in the past few years. In the early 21st century, Christie's house sold, at public auction, two of her paintings in the $13,000 to $18,000 range. Another work, Portrait of a boy on a beach, was offered in the $30,000 to $50,000 range by Christie's. Yet another work, Tahedat filant, earned $141,033, far above the auctioneer's estimate, although that was at the height of the market in 2008, before the world-wide recession hit the market for fine art very hard. Several of her Salon paintings were also exhibited recently by Milmo-Penny Fine Art for private sale.
Academic Research
Since 2007, art historian Mary Healy from the Department of Art History at University College Cork, Ireland, has dedicated her research to the life and oeuvre of Lucas-Robiquet. Healy’s work, which is based on primary source documentation, is entitled Women Orientalist Artist-Explorers of 19th Century France: uncovering the life narrative, artistic career and oeuvre of Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet (1858-1959).
Mary Healy believes that like many other women Orientalists, Lucas-Robiquet has not received adequate art historical attention and the artist's works, artistic successes and methodologies, her explorations in Northern Africa as a pied noir during the French colonial era and her major contribution to the French Orientalist movement have yet to be justly recorded. A peer-reviewed article by Healy is entitled 'Uncovering French Women Orientalists: Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet (1858-1959)', Women's Studies An Interdisciplinary Journal, 44 (8), 2015:1178-1199.
Mary Healy’s research on the 19th century French Orientalist artist Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet is currently ongoing.