Sophie Regnault

Sophie Regnault was born Sophie Meyer in Paris. A biographical archive gives her birth date as 15 October 1763, a date consistent with the age at death of 61 recorded in the French Wikipedia infobox.

In 1786 she married the painter Jean-Baptiste Regnault, one of the leading Neoclassical painters working in Paris in the period. The couple had three sons, though their names are not confirmed in the sources reviewed. No documented record of formal artistic training for Sophie Regnault has been located, and her practice appears to have developed within her husband's household and studio milieu rather than through an independently verified academic path.

Only two signed works by her are currently known to scholarship: a portrait of the Heurtier couple, and a self-portrait now held in the collection of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. She died on 25 February 1825 in what was then the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

Beyond a brief entry in French-language Wikipedia, no substantial body of critical or art historical writing about Sophie Regnault as an independent artist has been located, and no verbatim quotation from a named critic in a major outlet is available to cite. What limited attention she receives places her primarily in relation to her husband's better documented career, as one of a small number of women painters recorded in the circle of a major Neoclassical figure.

A Christie's lot listing exists for a work catalogued as Portraits de Jean-Francois Heurtier and attributed to Sophie Regnault (1763 to 1825), which may correspond to the Heurtier portrait counted among her two known signed works, but the sale outcome, price, and date could not be confirmed from the sources reviewed, so no verified price benchmark can be cited here. This is consistent with an oeuvre of only two known signed works, one of which sits in a permanent museum collection rather than in private or dealer hands. There is no evidence of a modern gallery or estate actively bringing her work to market.

There is effectively no market to assess for Sophie Regnault. Only two signed works are currently documented, no catalogue raisonne exists, and no auction result has been verified. Anyone encountering a work attributed to her should treat the attribution with particular care given the absence of a raisonne and the very small confirmed body of work, and should look to the two published, catalogued examples, the Heurtier portrait and the Museo de Arte de Ponce self-portrait, as the primary points of comparison.