Héléna Arsène Darmesteter

Héléna Arsène Darmesteter
Born	1854 London
Died	1923
Nationality	United Kingdom

Héléna Arsène Darmesteter, born Héléna Hartog (1854 – 1923) was a British portrait painter.

Darmesteter was born in London as the daughter of a French school teacher and the editor of the first Jewish women’s periodical, Marion Hartog Moss.^[1] Her parents ran a French boarding school where Héléna learned to speak French. She later studied painting in Paris under Gustave Courtois, where she met her husband Arsène Darmesteter. She became a successful portrait painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1891 and 1894 and at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.^[2] She also showed works at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions in 1907 and 1908. She was a member of the Société des Artistes Français and of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Philip, Numa and Marcus Hartog were her brothers, and her husband's brother James Darmesteter married the poet A. Mary F. Robinson.

Her self-portrait and a study of a woman before a mirror were included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World.^[3]

• 
  Portrait of cousin Sarah Marks (later called Hertha Ayrton)
• 
  Study of a woman before a mirror

References

1. Marion Moss in the Jewish Women's Archive
2. The Royal Academy of Arts; a complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904
3. Women painters of the world, from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413-1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day, by Walter Shaw Sparrow, The Art and Life Library, Hodder & Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London, 1905