Françoise Basseporte

Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, (28 April 1701 – 6 September 1780) was a French painter.

Basseporte was born and died in Paris. She became one of the pupils of Claude Aubriet thanks to her precocious talent for design. She replaced him as the Royal Painter after his death. The king Louis XV of France commissioned her to teach the princesses how to paint flowers. She served for nearly 50 years as the official botanical illustrator at the Jardin du Roi, the only woman to do so. This position required not only scientific illustration skills, but also the capacity to dissect plants and reveal their internal structures.^[1]

She collaborated with the chemist Rouelle and the sculptor Larchevêque, and studied botany with Jussieu. She later taught anatomical illustration to Marie Marguerite Bihéron, who later became a wax modeler.^[2]

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