Photograph by Ed Pollard, Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital slr-2011.

Untitled (Raphael Collin and female students in Académie Vitti, Paris)

Artist Imbert (French, late 19th century)

CultureFrench

Dateca. 1898

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 7 x 9 1/4 in. (17.8 x 23.5 cm)
Overall, Support: 9 3/8 × 11 3/4 in. (23.8 × 29.8 cm)
Overall, Mat: 10 1/2 x 12 1/4 in. (26.7 x 31.1 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Goldsborough Serpell

Object number46.76.177

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an albumen print of Susan Watkins with other women artists enrolled in Collin’s studio circa 1898. She is shown seated in the second row, the fourth figure in from the left.

Label TextImbert French (late 19th century) Raphael Collin and his Female Students in his Atelier, Paris, ca. 1898 Albumen print In the decades following the Civil War, American artists were increasingly influenced by aesthetic developments in Paris, which by then had become the undisputed center of the Western art world. American artists flocked to the French capital to train at the government-run École des Beaux-Arts, in independent art schools like the Académie Julian, or in the private studios of academic masters such as Adolfe-William Bouguereau and Raphael Collin. A growing number of these American students were women, who, as late as the 1890s, still found their educational progress hampered by traditions and practices that clearly favored their male counterparts. The École, then the world’s most prestigious art school, refused to admit women students until 1897, though women were allowed to attend anatomy classes on Sunday mornings. And while private academies such as Julian’s and private studios such as Collin’s welcomed women, they were typically charged them higher tuition fees than men and segregated them in all-female classes (and sometimes even in separate studios). Himself a student of the academic grand maître Bouguereau, Collin challenged his women students with a traditional teaching regimen that involved instruction in drawing, anatomy lessons, and the all-important life class focusing on the nude model. Watkins enrolled in Collin’s studio around 1897, shortly before this photograph of him and his female students was taken. She is shown seated in the second row, the fourth figure in from the left.