Amélie Valentino (1842–1921) Portrait Of A Child

Amélie Valentino (1842–1921) Portrait of a Child, ca. 1880, 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 her use of pastel, a technique akin to that of Impressionist artists such as Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot. She is one example of the many women artists who revolutionized artistic creation in the late 19th century by questioning the place of women in the arts and in society.
After receiving her initial training in Metz, her hometown, Amélie Valentino studied in Paris under the painters Rudder and Jacquesson de la Chevreuses, and later under Henner, Carolus-Duran, and Lebourg.
Amélie Valentino made her debut at the Salon in 1870 at the Palais des Champs Élysées and again in 1874. Beginning in 1877, she regularly exhibited portraits of women at the Salon des Artistes Français, and then, starting in 1890, at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, as well as at the exhibitions of the Société des femmes artistes, held from 1893 to 1907 at the Georges Petit Gallery.
At the same time, M^lle Amélie Valentino was active in the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, founded in 1881 by Hélène Bertaux, which brought together socially engaged women artists, and then, in 1892, she helped found a splinter group: the Society of Women Artists. She is listed in 1906 as an Associate of the National Society of Fine Arts.
These associations sought to raise awareness of and gain recognition for women artists and demanded women’s access to fine arts education, which would not become a reality until 1897–1900.
Her works, influenced by Impressionism, earned her regular exhibitions in Paris. Works are held at the Metz Museum. The Châteauroux Museum also owns a large pastel donated by Alphonse de Rothschild in 1904.