The Madame B Album c. 1870s

Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier made this photograph sometime in the late 19th century, as part of an album. She was a society portraitist, and it looks like she’s photographed plaster casts after classical sculptures. The statues themselves are interesting choices. On the left is Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt. On the right is Flora, goddess of springtime. One is associated with the masculine pursuit of hunting. The other is associated with the feminine attribute of beauty. In the 19th century, academies and other institutions were invested in creating a hierarchy of artistic subjects with history painting at the top and portraiture at the bottom. Here, Fournier elevates what might be seen as a minor genre through allusions to classical sculpture. As historians, we are concerned with how society shapes art, and how art shapes society. You might pursue your own investigations at archive.org or in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. There you could examine publications from the time, and consider how the gendered symbolism of this image may have been understood in its original social context.