Henriette Browne [Sophie de Bouteiller](French painter) 1829-1901
Born Sophie Bouteiller in Paris in 1829, the artist was the daughter of a French Count from an ancient aristocratic family. She exhibited under the pseudonym Henriette Browne because painting was not considered a suitable occupation for young women of the upper classes in France at this time. The name Browne came from an Irish ancestor and supporter of the Pretender, who had settled in Brittany after the battle at Culloden. In 1849 Browne received drawing lessons from Emile Perrin (1814 -1885), then studied under the academician Charles Chaplin (1825 -1891) from 1851 to 1853.The French Academy of Painting and Sculpture had been founded in the 17th century but still, 200 years, later exerted a powerful influence on French art. The Academy exhibitions had exclusive rights to the major public exhibitions and dominated the major schools. It was predominantly a male preserve and the painters elected as Academians established teaching studios to continue the traditional techniques and attitudes. Browne began to show her paintings publicly in the Paris Salon in 1853 and continued to exhibit until 1879, showing, as a contemporary critic said, "remarkable perseverance and a true vocation to devote herself with such constancy to art amidst all the demands made on her by her fashionable life." Browne married diplomat Comte Jules de Saux in 1853. They travelled widely together including the Netherlands, Italy, Constantinople, Morocco, Egypt and Syria. Her husband died in 1879. Browne specialised in moralistic figure works, often of women in domestic settings, as well as portraiture. Later she also used oriental subjects from her travels in her painting. She was one of three female founder members of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1862 and was made an honorary member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, London, in 1894. Browne died in Paris, early 1901.
