Labille-Guiard was one of the first women to become a member of the Royal Academy, and was the first female artist to receive permission to set up a studio for her students at the Louvre.

During her adolescence, Labille-Guiard studied miniature painting with oil painter François-Élie Vincent and her early work was exhibited at the Académie de Saint-Luc.

This show was so successful that the Royal Academy took offence, and with the backing of the monarchy, issued an edict in March 1776 abolishing “guilds, brotherhoods, and communities of arts and crafts”, forcing the Académie de Saint-Luc to close its doors in 1777.

Labille-Guiard's talent as an oil painter and pastellist was quickly noticed, and she received national recognition, ultimately leading to her acceptance into the Royal Academy.

[7] One anonymous pamphlet Suite de Malborough au Salon 1783, accused Labille-Guiard of exchanging sexual favors for help with painting.

The pamphlet punned on François-André Vincent's name (though still unmarried, he was her rumored paramour), saying that Labille Guiard had "vignt cents" (twenty-hundreds, or two thousand) lovers.

[1] In order to appeal to a wide variety of viewers including upper-class men and women, she often incorporated recent fashions into her paintings, which allowed her to showcase her artistic ability.

[5] Today, Labille-Guiard's masterpiece, Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, hangs in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, after the Louvre rejected it in a final dismissal of the artist's talent.

In a letter written by a mother whose daughter studied painting with a female academic, (who, based on the description, seems to be Labille-Guiard) she explained that the teacher insisted on maintaining the highest standards of modesty in her studio.

At a meeting held on 23 September 1790, Labille-Guiard proposed that women be admitted in unlimited numbers and be permitted to serve on the institution's governing board.

[1] However, conservatives of the Academy turned it down and criticized Labille Guiard as a "Jeanne d'Arc", and "a hen amongst roosters," and she was similarly condemned by the radicals.

[12] The Revolution further hurt her career when the royal sisters emigrated in February 1791 without paying for several portraits they had commissioned Labille-Guiard to paint.

In 1795, she obtained lodging at Louvre, and continued to paint and exhibit portraits at the Salons until 1800, the year she married her former teacher, François-André Vincent (1746–1816) in 1800.

[4][2] The pastel portraits of Marie Adélaïde, Victoire-Louise, and Élisabeth stayed in Labille-Guiard's possession until she died from an illness on 24 April 1803.

The photograph is attached[13] Labille-Guiard is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece The Dinner Party, being represented in one of the 999 tiles of the Heritage Floor.