Collection: Marie Denise Villers

Marie-Denise Villers (née Lemoine; 1774 – 19 August 1821) was a French painter who specialized in portraits.

Villers was the sister of the painter Marie Victorine Lemoine and a pupil of Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson, Jacques Louis David’s student. Taking advantage of newly open submission procedures for women painters at the Salon, she exhibited this work publicly in 1801 under her name, but it was soon incorrectly ascribed to David—a misidentification perpetuated until the 1950s.