Around 1800, more and more women participated in French artistic life, driven by the common desire to play a role outside the family sphere. Despite the action of certain political figures such as the Marquis de Condorcet or Olympe de Gouges, the Revolution did not grant women substantial civil rights, and they were still not equal to men either before the law or before society. However, at the end of the 18th century, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Anne Vallayer-Coster and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard had succeeded together in France in integrating certain painting academies. They had acquired independence as well as glory linked to their own names and not those of their husbands – these three women have their original name followed by their married name. Women artists at the beginning of the 19th century wanted to follow in their footsteps to exhibit beyond the private sphere. Trained for the most part by big names in ancient classicism like David or Regnault, but also by other women like Madame Regnault, they occupied an increasingly important place until the 1820s. Henriette Lorimier is one of these women painters who have managed to make a name for themselves in painting.

Élisabeth Henriette Marthe Lorimier, born August 7, 1775 in Paris, is a French painter. Introduced to painting by Jean-Baptiste Régnault, she exhibited at the Paris Salon and at the Royal Museum at the age of 25. In 1805, Princess Caroline Murat acquired her painting The Feeding Goat which had been exhibited since 1804. And in 1806 she received a gold medal at the Salon for Jeanne de Navarre, a painting that Empress Joséphine acquired in 1807 (currently kept in Rueil -Malmaison, Malmaison castle). In 1808, she met François Pouqueville, a man of letters and diplomat, but the couple did not settle down together until 1817; she cannot marry Pouqueville who was ordained a priest at a younger age; their two daughters will, however, be recognized by their father. The couple frequented the Parisian intellectual elite of the Empire and the Restoration and counted Chateaubriand, A. Dumas, Ingres, Arago among their friends.