Anna Bilińska (1854-1893)

Anna Bilińska, also known as Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, (8 December 1854 - 18 April 1893) was a Polish painter, known for her portraits. A representative of realism, she spent much of her artistic life in Paris.

Life

She was born in Zlatopol (formerly a frontier town of the Russian Empire, today a part of Novomyrhorod) as Anna Bilińska, and spent her childhood there with her father who was a Polish physician. Of her background, she joked that she "ha[d] a Cossack's temperament but a Polish heart" (Polish: ma temperament kozaczy, ale serce polskie).

The family then moved to Central Russia, where Anna’s first art teachers were Ignacy Jasiński and Michał Elwiro Andriolli, both deported by the Tsarist government to Vyatka for their part in the January Uprising of 1863–1864. Later she studied music and art in Warsaw, where in 1877 she became a student of the painter Wojciech Gerson.

Marie Lucas Robiquet | Orientalist painter

Marie Elisabeth Aimée Lucas-Robiquet (17 October 1858 – 21 December 1959) was a French Orientalist artist who worked within the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français.

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".

Marie Lucas-Robiquet was a rare example of a female artist, living and working in North Africa, at a time when women were rarely admitted to art academies, and were not encouraged to travel without a chaperone. Her paintings reveal some of the locations where she travelled including Algeria.

Adolphe Henri Laissement | Genre painter

Henri Laissement was was a French portrait and genre painter.

In 1872, at the age of 18 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts studying under Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889) who greatly influenced his drawing technique.

He made his debut at the Paris Salon in 1879 and continued to exhibit there regularly until 1912.

He received a number of accolades over the years including honourable mention awards in 1882 and 1889, a third class medal in 1898, a bronze medal in 1900, and a second class medal in 1905.

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg | Neoclassical painter

Having won the Great Grand Prize for painting awarded by the Royal Danish Academy in 1809, the Danish painter Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853) set out from Copenhagen the following year with Rome as his ultimate destination.

He spent three years in Paris along the way, including one year as a pupil of the foremost European painter of the era, Jacques-Louis David.

Eckersberg was arguably David's most important foreign follower.

Absorbing both his austere Neoclassical idealism and his admonition never to stray from nature, the master's teachings prepared him for Rome as well as his subsequent career as a mentor to younger painters.

Christine Løvmand | Flower painter

Christine Marie Løvmand (19 March 1803 - 10 April 1872) was a Danish artist who specialized in paintings of flowers and still lifes. She was one of the few women at the time who gained recognition as a painter.

As a child, Løvmand helped her sick mother look after the five children in the family. When her father died in 1826, she resolved to work hard to support the family.

From 1824, both Christine and her sister Frederikke started to have painting and drawing lessons with the flower painter Johannes Ludvig Camradt.

In 1827, the two sisters began to exhibit at Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition.