Henriette Vincent

Henriette Vincent (1786–1834) was an early 19th-century botanical painter at the French court.

Henriette Antoinette Rideau du Sal was born in Brest, France, in May 1786. Her father, Marcel-Henry Rideau du Sal, was a naval chief commissioner, while her mother was a descendant of St. Malo corsairs. In August 1803, shortly after her father's death, she married Ambroise Mery Vincent (1776-1863), a local marine engineer who was working for the port of Brest's naval artillery service and to whom she had given lessons. The following year, they had a son, Aristide Vincent (1804–1879), who as an adult became a businessman, farmer, and Fourierist journalist in Brest.

On Ambroise's marriage, his family settled property in the nearby town of Roscanvel on him, and he built some kilns on this land because he had ambitions to get into the ceramics and brickmaking business. He abandoned this ambition to help support his wife's career as a painter. They moved to Paris, where he got a job as superintendent of the gardens at the future Empress Josephine's residence, Château de Malmaison, just outside the city. By 1814, he would rise to be superintendent of imperial buildings in Compiègne, a job lost he almost immediately when Napoleon abdicated his throne the following year. Within a decade, he had recovered his fortunes sufficiently to be able to buy the former Landévennec Abbey near Brest, and he turned to property management, with mixed results.

Henriette studied painting in Paris with Gerard van Spaendonck and Pierre-Joseph Redouté, both of whom were noted flower painters and French court artists. Redouté in particular spent much time painting the roses and other flowers in the garden at Malmaison during the reign of Napoleon. Under their tutelage, she developed into an exceptional artist who rivaled Redouté in her handling of color. She worked professionally under her married name of Henriette Vincent, sometimes styling herself "Madame Vincent" (not to be confused with the painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, who is also sometimes referred to under that title). Her connection with Redouté led to a number of opportunities for commissioned work, and she was able to exhibit her work in the Paris Salon in 1814, 1819, 1822, and 1824. These accomplishments were rare for women artists of the period, who had few opportunities to gain the kind of advanced training that would lead to commissions and allow them to become self-supporting.

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