Charlotte du Val d’Ognes is an object lesson. Like so many women, she gave up the dream of success as a professional artist when she became a wife. Her giving up is not surprising. Not just because social pressure bore down on women to put their husbands and children before all else. But it was also a terrible time to be a woman artist in France. “Although politically advanced,” notes feminist art historian Linda Nochlin, “the revolution was in many ways socially conservative.”
