A mysterious lady

A mysterious, politically engaged lady
In the music room of the Merghelynck Museum hangs a beautiful neoclassical portrait of a pretty young lady. We do not know who she is. This is particularly unfortunate for this portrait. The self-assured lady wears a red and blue cloth over her simple lace-trimmed blouse. Anyone wearing these colours around 1790 did so for a reason. Together, they form the bleu-blanc-rouge of the French revolutionaries. The portrait is therefore a clear political statement.

Although partly forgotten, women were indeed politically active during the French Revolution: Olympe de Gouges, for example, fought for equal rights between women and men. In September 1791, she published a Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Women and Female Citizens). Two years later, she ended up under the guillotine, officially because she opposed the death penalty for the royal family.