Amélie Valentino (1842-1921) Portrait Of A Child

Amélie Valentino (1842-1921) Portrait of a child, pastel, 33 x 25 cm, signed lower left, 19th century frame, framed dimensions 37 x 31 cm.

Amélie Valentino's fame is linked to her portraits and the technique of pastel. She is an example of the many female artists who shook up artistic creation at the end of the 19th century by questioning the place of women in the arts and in society.
After initial training in Metz, her hometown, Amélie Valentino was a student in Paris of the painters Rudder, Jacquesson de la Chevreuses, then of Henner, Carolus-Duran and Lebourg.
Amélie Valentino made her debut at the Salon in 1870 at the Palais des Champs Élysées and then in 1874. From 1877 she regularly presented portraits of women at the Salon des Artistes Français and then from 1890 at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts as well as at the exhibitions of the Société des femmes artistes set up from 1893 to 1907 at the Georges Petit gallery.
At the same time, Miss Amélie Valentino was active in the Union des Femmes peintres et sculpteurs founded in 1881 by Hélène Bertaux which brought together committed women artists, then, in 1892, she participated in the creation of a dissident group: the Société des femmes artistes. She was mentioned in 1906 as an Associate of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts.
These associations wanted to make women artists known and recognized and demanded access for women to the teaching of Fine Arts which would not be effective until 1897-1900.
Her works in the impressionist spirit would earn her regular exhibitions in Paris. Works at the Metz museum. The Châteauroux museum also has a large pastel donated by Alphonse de Rothschild in 1904