Sophie Fremiet

Who was Sophie Fremiet?

Sophie Fremiet was a French painter.

Born in Dijon, her father was the assistant curator of the city's museum, a patron of artists and a fervent Bonapartist. Sophie was taught by Anatole Devosge, a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David. Her father supported the work of a young Dijon sculptor, François Rude.

In the aftermath of the second Bourbon Restoration in 1815, the Fremiet family, along with many other Bonapartists, left France for Brussels. Here Sophie studied under another French exile, her former teacher's master, Jacques-Louis David. She worked as David's copyist and exhibited her own works in Brussels and in Antwerp. In 1820, her Belle Anthia was a great success at an exhibition in Ghent

On 25 July 1821, Sophie married her father's former protégé François Rude. The couple would have only one child, Amédée, who died young in 1830. In Brussels Sophie was a successful artist, receiving many commissions, including several for the former royal palace at Tervuren, lost in the fire that destroyed it. Her works were neoclassicist in style, largely mythological, although she produced a small number of religious paintings.