Marie-Guillemine Benoist

Marie-Guillemine Benoist, born Marie-Guillemine Laville-Leroux (18 December 1768 – 8 October 1826), was a French neoclassical, historical, and genre painter.

Marie Guillemine Laville-Leroux was born in Paris, the daughter of a civil servant. Her training as an artist began in 1781 under Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and she entered Jacques-Louis David's atelier in 1786 along with her sister Marie-Élisabeth Laville-Leroux.

She first exhibited in the Exposition de la Jeunesse in 1784, showing a portrait of her father and two pastel studies of heads. She continued to exhibit at the Exposition until 1788. The poet Charles-Albert Demoustier, who met her in 1784, was inspired by her in creating the character Émilie in his work Lettres à Émilie sur la mythologie (1801).

In 1791, Laville-Leroux exhibited for the first time at the Paris Salon, displaying her mythology-inspired picture Psyché faisant ses adieux à sa famille. Another of her paintings of this period, L'Innocence entre la vertu et le vice, is similarly mythological and reveals her feminist interests — in this picture, vice is represented by a man, although it was traditionally represented by a woman.