Lutetia Famae Genitrix.

Lutetia Famae Genitrix (Lutetia, Mother of Fame), held in the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, is an allegorical work celebrating Paris under its ancient Roman name — Lutetia Parisiorum, the Roman settlement on the Île de la Cité. The phrase 'mother of fame' positions Paris as the origin of civilizational prestige and artistic renown, a patriotic claim with resonance in late nineteenth-century French culture, when the city was reasserting its cultural supremacy after the trauma of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune. Benjamin-Constant produced several large-scale allegorical and mural works in this period, drawing on his academic training in compositional rhetoric and his command of the female figure in grand allegorical guise. The work on paper suggests this may be a preparatory study or a dedicated work on a more intimate support. The Musée des Augustins, built in a former Augustinian monastery, holds the most important collection of Benjamin-Constant's work given his Toulouse origins, and this allegorical image of Paris would have had the particular resonance of a Toulouse-born artist's tribute to the capital where he made his reputation.

The allegorical female figure of Lutetia is posed with the rhetorical grandeur of a classical personification, combining physical presence with symbolic attributes. Working on paper, Benjamin-Constant may employ a looser, more exploratory handling than his finished oil canvases, using the medium's receptivity to rapid mark-making.