Marianne de Bellem (6 October 1767 - 17 December 1798) was a Belgian revolutionary and pastellist.

Biography

De Bellem was likely born in Brussels, the daughter of the revolutionary

Jeanne de Bellem Jeanne de Bellem or Jeanne Pinaut (1 March 1734 – fl. 1793), was a politically active Belgian pamphlet writer and a participator of the Brabant revolution of 1789. She had a long-term relationship with the revolutionary leader Henri Van der No ...

and an unknown father; Guillaume-François Bertout de Carillo, vicomte d’Ottignies, dit de Quenonville has been proposed as a candidate. What little is known about her comes largely from a play by

De Beaunoir Alexandre-Louis-Bertrand Robineau, called ''de Beaunoir'', (4 April 1746 – 5 August 1823) was an 18th-century French playwright. Biography Intended for the service of the Church, he indeed became abbot, but quickly turned away, fascinated by ...

, ''Histoire secrète et anecdotique de l'Insurrection belgique, ou Vander-Noot'', dating to 1790. This claims that she was the mistress of Pierre van Eupen, and that by 1787 she and her mother had been encouraged by the latter's lover,

Hendrik Van der Noot Henri van der Noot, in Dutch Henrik van der Noot, and popularly called Heintje van der Noot or Vader Heintje (7 January 1731 – 12 January 1827), was a jurist, lawyer and politician from Brabant. He was one of the main figures of the Brabant Revo ...

, to distribute revolutionary pamphlets in the streets of Brussels calling for an insurrection against the Austrians. Eventually they were required to flee the city; this is the last recorded sighting of Marianne. Her artistic activities are attested to in a number of letters between her mother and Van der Noot in which Jeanne thanks him for providing pastels for her daughter. A June 28, 1791 letter from Rotterdam, to which city the women had fled, was published in the ''Nouvelles extraordinaires de divers endroits'' on July 5 and states that Marianne has taken up painting pastels and miniatures as a way of providing an income. Her whereabouts after this are unknown. No works are traced, but the stage directions for Act IV of De Beaunoir's play direct that the walls should be decorated with "postures choisies de l’Aretin, dessinés au pastel par Mariane".Profile
at the ''Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellem, Marianne de 1761 births 1798 deaths 18th-century women artists Painters from the Austrian Netherlands Pastel artists Independence activists of the Brabant Revolution