Forum--emulation in France, 1750-1800: The laws of Bienseance and the gendering of emulation in eighteenth-century French art education

[...]more to the point of this forum, we should also observe that the Academy's emphasis on competitive emulation ran counter to fashionable trends in girls' education. An image of the Virgin literally hovered over the privileged desk, encouraging girls to contemplate Mary's virtues of humility, piety, and obedience. [...]treatises on the education of girls from the seventeenth century forward repeatedly warn teachers to respect the God-given limitations of each student by keeping a tight lid on the girls' ambitions. [...]the floorboards that meet in a V at the work's lower edge create a visual barricade that functions as the opposite of one-point perspective, allowing us no entry into the scene's imaginary depth. [...]she has drained competitive desire from her studio relations by assigning us the role of desiring viewer and uniting the students in a privileged position of visual fulfillment.