Portrait of Charlotte du Val d'Ognes

Executed in oil on canvas, the painting measures 161.3 × 128.6 cm. The support is a standard canvas, and the medium is oil paint, typical of early 19th-century portraiture. A notable formal feature is the trompe-l'oeil treatment of the broken window, described as a tour de force that distinguishes the exterior view as seen only partly through glass. The composition places the sitter drawing in the foreground, with a couple visible on a parapet beyond the window, while the setting has been identified as a gallery of the Louvre.

Critics have noted certain anatomical weaknesses in the figure, which contributed to later reattributions away from Jacques-Louis David. The painting is unsigned, and its handling reflects the academic style of the period, though with some perceived inconsistencies in draftsmanship.

Painted in 1801, the work was first exhibited at the Paris Salon that same year. It is unsigned, leading to a long chain of misattribution. A member of the sitter's family believed it was by Jacques-Louis David.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the painting in 1922 for $200,000 under that attribution. In 1951, curator Charles Sterling questioned the David attribution, partly because David had boycotted the 1801 Salon; the museum published the error that January. Sterling then reattributed the painting to Constance Marie Charpentier, though David's name was not removed from the frame until 1977.

In 1996, Margaret Oppenheimer argued for Marie-Denise Villers based on a modello by Villers, an attribution now accepted by the Met. The painting remains in the museum's collection.

The painting is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum acquired it in 1922 for $200,000, at a time when it was attributed to Jacques-Louis David. Its earliest recorded exhibition was at the Salon of 1801 in Paris.

In 1971, the work appeared on the cover of ARTnews magazine. No accession or inventory number for the piece is mentioned in the available sources.

The painting's critical reception shifted dramatically with its changing attributions. Initially praised as a David, it was called 'a perfect picture, unforgettable' by André Maurois. After Charles Sterling reattributed it to Constance Charpentier in 1951, critics suddenly found faults, with Sterling deeming it a 'merciless portrait of an intelligent, homely woman' and James Laver noting weaknesses unworthy of David.

Scholarship by Margaret Oppenheimer (1996) reattributed the work to Marie-Denise Villers, and Anne Higonnet later argued it is a self-portrait set in a Louvre gallery used by women artists. Feminist critics, including Germaine Greer, have interpreted the painting as feminist and a portrayal of female artistic ambition during a brief period of opportunity for women. The work's place in art history was cemented when Linda Nochlin's pioneering essay 'Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?' featured it on the cover of ARTnews in 1971.

The painting's legacy is shaped by its dramatic reattribution history and its later embrace by feminist art historians. Originally acquired as a Jacques-Louis David, its demotion to a work by Constance Marie Charpentier in 1951 prompted critics to find faults they had previously overlooked, as noted by James Laver. Reattributed to Marie-Denise Villers in 1996, the portrait gained new significance.

Germaine Greer characterized it as a feminist painting that does not seek to charm or portray sexual vitality. The work appeared on the cover of the January 1971 issue of ARTnews, which featured Linda Nochlin's pioneering essay 'Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?', cementing its place in feminist art history. Today, it is recognized as an important female artist's portrait of a woman in a space used for women's artistic instruction.

This oil painting, Portrait of Charlotte du Val d'Ognes, created in 1801, is attributed to the French Neoclassical artist Marie-Denise Villers. Housed in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the work depicts a young woman seated by a broken window. Its history is notable for a prolonged period of misattribution, initially to Jacques-Louis David, before scholarly research definitively restored Villers's authorship.