Marie-Guillemine Benoist is a French woman painter, née Marie-Guillemine Leroulx-Delaville. She first studied with Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in 1781 and in 1786 worked in the studio of Jacques-Louis David. In 1784 she met the poet Charles-Albert Demoustier (1760-1801), and the figure of Emilie in his Lettres de la mythologie represents Benoist. She exhibited at the Salon in 1791 (Psyche Taking Leave of her Family) and obtained a gold medal there in 1804. Her reputation as a portrait painter brought her commissions from Napoleon and his family. She made her name with the semi-nude Portrait of a Negress (exhibited on the Salon 1800; Paris, Louvre), in which she broke with the graceful style of her early works.