Julie Buchet, Gallery known as the Venus de Milo, at the Louvre Museum
Julie Buchet (1847-1921), Gallery known as the Venus de Milo, at the Louvre Museum,

oil on canvas, 1885, 113 x 80,5 cm.

Signed and dated top left: J. Buchet 1885

Stamp on chassis: US Customs

Exhibitions

1885, Paris, Salon of the Society of French Artists, no. 409.

1885, Paris, Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, no. 44.

1888, Versailles, 35th Versailles exhibition of the Society of Friends of the Arts of the department of Seine-et-Oise, no. 63.

1893, Chicago, 1893 World's Fair, Women's Palace, official French catalogue no. 282 Venus de Milo Gallery. 

Our painting is at the center of the rediscovery of the career of a painter, until now known for having restored works belonging to the Louvre Museum. The high quality of her painting highlights Julie Buchet's artistic talents, just as her multiple exhibitions, in France and the United States, restore a forgotten part of the history of women painters at the end of the XIXth century. Julie Buchet was originally from the city of Bourges. From her years of apprenticeship, the catalogues of the art salons, where she exhibited, from 1884, mention the names of her two masters: Jean-Léon Gérôme and Léon Bonnat. Since women were denied entry to the School of Fine Arts where they taught, as well as from competing in the Grand Prix de Rome, Julie Buchet got around these difficulties by seeking lessons from these eminent painting teachers, at the studio of Madame Trélat de Vigny, where they gave their advice. Julie Buchet therefore obtained a quality artistic education despite these strong constraints.

The distribution of the compartmentalized gallery in alveoli – which open onto a central cradle – dates from the time when the opening of the museum required the reorganization of the exhibition rooms of the antiques (Melpomene Room, Isis Room (future gallery of the Venus de Milo) and Pan corridor), inaugurated in 1815 and 1817. When it entered the museum in 1821, the masterpiece of Greek statuary was first presented in the center of the Tiber Room and then from 1848, at the end of the rooms of the north gallery. Discovered in April 1820 in Milo, in the Cyclades archipelago, it was offered by the French ambassador to Constantinople, the Marquis de Rivière to King Louis XVIII, on March 1, 1821, which immediately placed it in the Royal Museum of Antiquities. It is noted that the antique plinth of the Venus de Milo is incorporated into a circular plaster base and that the restored left foot has been removed. The work is not yet placed at a distance by a barrier as it will be around 1896, and the long label that we see on the representations since 1822, mentioning its title of Venus Victrix, has been removed. The only label on the base, visible on the canvas, indicates the restorations carried out.