Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot

Antoinette-Cécile-Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot was a French painter, mainly of genre scenes. A native of Paris, she began studies with Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, a popular history painter and family friend, at the age of seven; when he was appointed director of the French Academy in Rome in 1807, she followed him, arriving in 1808 and remaining there until 1816. There she depicted the customs and costumes of Italian peasants in great detail. Such foreign experience was rare for a woman artist, and influenced much of her work. She regularly exhibited her work at the Paris Salon, showing some 110 paintings there between 1811 and 1840.