Aurore de Lafond de Fénion
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Aurore-Étiennette de Lafond de Fénion (1788-1859) was a French history and genre painter active during the Napoleonic period and the Bourbon Restoration. She was known for her sentimental historical scenes, royalist subjects, and domestic genre painting. She exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon between 1812 and 1822 and received several medals at provincial and national exhibitions.
Aure Étiennette de Lafond was born on 17 February 1788 in Saint-Maixent-l’École, in the department of Deux-Sèvres, to Jean-François-Bruno de Lafond and Marie-Anne-Antoinette Mollière de Favreuille. She was baptised the same day at the church of Saint-Léger.[1] She later settled in Paris, where she studied academic figure painting under Jean-Baptiste Regnault.[2]
During her career she worked under several professional names, exhibiting first as Delafond and later as Lafond de Fénion. She lived and maintained her studio on the Left Bank of the Seine in the 6th and 7th arrondissements of Paris, notably at rue des Marais-Saint-Germain - today rue Visconti, rue Guénégaud, and later rue de Bac.[3][4][5]
In June 1834 she married Jean-Léon Le Prevost.[5]
Lafond de Fénion's career coincided with the Bourbon Restoration, and several of her most important works were connected to royalist memory and Bourbon patronage, particularly through the Duchess of Berry.
She died on 5 November 1859 in the institution run by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Liergues.[6]