Françoise Basseporte

From 1741 until her death, she served as the Royal Painter for the King's Garden and Cabinet (now the Jardin des Plantes), an unprecedented appointment for a woman artist at the time.

In contact with many of the major botanists and naturalists of her time, she gained recognition for her illustrations of plants, shells, animals, birds, and sea creatures.

Though adept in pastel portraiture, Basseporte chose to pursue botanical illustration because it provided a steady income with which to support her family.

[2] Basseporte furthered her connections to the scientific community through Noel-Antoine Pluche, whose Spectacle de la nature she helped illustrate, and plant physiologist Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau.

[5] In addition to teaching royals and nobility, Basseporte is thought to have taught and heavily influenced artists such as Marie Therese Vien and Anne Vallayer-Coster.

[4] Basseporte's connections to major botanists of the time, such as the previously mentioned Carolus Linnaeus and Georges-Louis Leclerc, reveal the artist's status within the genre of botanical illustration.

Many of Basseporte's botanical illustrations, including those featured in attached external links below, were done in watercolor over pencil on vellum and measure about 15 x 12 inches.