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2012
Vigée Le Brun was born in Paris, France, on April 16, 1755. She was the daughter of Louis Vigée, a painter, and Jeanne (née Maissin), a hairdresser. Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was sent to live with her relatives in Épernon until the age of 6. Her father died when she was 12. In 1768 her mother remarried a wealthy jeweler, Jacques-François Le Sèvre, and shortly after, the family moved to the Rue Saint-Honoré, close to the Palais Royal.
Vigée Le Brun received her first instruction from her father. In 1760, when she was five, she entered a convent, where remained until 1766. She took lessons from Gabriel Briard, and was mentored by a number of artists including Jean-Baptiste Vernet and Jean-Baptiste Greuze.
In 1774 Vigée Le Brun began receiving portrait commissions from the French aristocracy when she was still a teenager. Vigée Le Brun soon became a popular portraitist among the French aristocracy, who liked her artistic style. She always depicted her models in a flattering manner, posed gracefully and wearing their most stylish clothing.
In 1779 Élisabeth Vigée le Brun painted her first portrait of Marie Antoinette. She became the queen's favorite portraitist. Vigée le Brun painted her the total of 30 times over the next decade until the oncoming French Revolution forced the artist to move to France in 1789. Meanwhile, during the 1780s she created portraits of members of the French royal court and aristocracy, including the Duchesse de Polignac and Madame du Barry. She also created several self-portraits, including one of herself with her daughter. In addition to her numerous portraits, she also made occasional mythological and allegorical scenes, for instance, Peace Bringing Back Abundance (1780) and Bacchante (1785).
In 1789 the artist travelled with her daughter through Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. She was warmly received by the foreign nobilities. She spent six years in Russia, where she met Catherine the Great. She worked throughout this time, creating portraits of royalty and aristocrats in her unique style.
Vigée Le Brun returned for a brief period of time to Paris in 1802. Then she lived and worked in London from 1803 till 1805. From 1805, she lived permanently in Paris. After her return, Vigée Le Brun spent much of her time at her country house in Louveciennes. Her later work included some mythological scenes and plenty of portraits of notable individuals, including the Prince of Wales (later George IV of England), Napoleon's sister Caroline Murat and woman of letters Germaine de Staël. The artist published her memoirs, titled Souvenirs, in three volumes between 1835 and 1837.
Élisabeth Vigée le Brun was one of the most popular portrait painters of her time. She enjoyed the patronage of European aristocrats, actors, and writers, and was elected to art academies in ten cities. Over her artistic career, Vigée Le Brun created about 660 portraits and 200 landscapes.
Vigée Le Brun is one of three characters in Joel Gross's Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh (2007), a fictionalized historical drama about a love triangle set against the backdrop of the French Revolution.
In addition to many artworks in private collections, her paintings are displayed at major museums, such as the Louvre, Hermitage Museum, the National Gallery in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among others.
The Genius of Alexander
Portrait of Maria Carolina of Austria
Flora
Portrait of Prince Henry Lubomirski as the Genius of Fame
Portrait of Countess Catherine Skavronskaya
Portrait of Élisabeth of France
Sergey Gagarin
Portrait of Madame Grand
Princess Louise of Prussia
Queen Marie Antoinette of France
Countess of Châtre
Lady Hamilton
Madame Perregaux
Portrait of Hubert Robert
Elisabeth Alexeievna
Portrait of Anna Pitt as Hebe
The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de Rougé with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien
The Daughter's Portrait
Portrait of a Young Woman
The Grand Duchesse Anna Feodorovna
German opera singer Elisabeth Mara
Anna Ivanovna Tolstaya
Portrait of Caroline Murat with her daughter, Letizia
Countess Skavronskaia
Portrait of a Lady
St. Genevieve
Count Grigory Ivanovich Tchernyshov Holding a Mask
Portrait of Joseph Vernet
Marie Antoinette walking in a garden
Baroness Anna Sergeevna Stroganova and Her Son Sergey
Self-portrait in a Straw Hat
Portrait of Countess Golovine
Giuseppina Grassini in the role of Zaire
Portrait of Charles Alexandre de Calonne
Self-portrait
Portrait of Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski
Self-portrait
Portrait of Mme D'Aguesseau
Alexandre Charles Emmanuel de Crussol Florensac
The Duchess de Polignac
Ekaterina I. Kutuzova, wife of russian field marshal M.I. Kutuzov
Portrait of Antoinette Elisabeth Marie d'Aguesseau, countess of Ségur
Portrait of Elisaveta Alexandrovna Demidova, nee Stroganova
Dauphin Louis Joseph Xavier of France, second child and first son of King Louis XVI. of France and Queen Marie Antoinette of France, grandson of Empre
Bacchante
Marie Antoinette and her Children
André Hercule de Fleury
Portrait of Empress Elisabeth Alexeievna of Russia
Princess Louise of Prussia
Self-portrait
Portrait of Count Pavel Shuvalov
Lady Hamilton as the Persian Sibyl
The Artist's Brother
Madame Vigee Lebrun and her daughter, Jeanne Lucie Louise
The Bather
Portrait of French actress Louise Rosalie Dugazon
Maria Luisa of Spain, wife of Emperor Leopold II
Moritz von Fries
Portrait of Madame du Barry
Self Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie
Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre
Lady Hamilton as Ariadne
Bacchante
Woman's Head
Countess Bucquoi
Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland
Francis I Bourbon
Marie Antoinette in a Muslin dress
Portrait of Madame du Barry
Portrait of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, king of Poland
Portrait of Izabela Lubomirska
Portrait of Baron Grigory Alexandrovich Stroganoff
Portrait of Madame de Stael as Corinne
Quotations: "Painting and living have always been one and the same thing for me."
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was made a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc in 1774. In 1783 she joined the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. She was one of only fifteen women to be granted full membership in the Académie between 1648 and 1793. Her membership there was dissolved after the French Revolution as female academicians were abolished. Later she was made a member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Petersburg, and an honorary member of the Société pour l'Avancement des Beaux-Arts, Geneva.
Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was a woman of much wit and charm.
Quotes from others about the person
Mémoires secrets [anonymous chronicle]: "An affectation which artists, art-lovers and persons of taste have been united in condemning, and which finds no precedent among the Ancients, is that in smiling, [Madame Vigée LeBrun] shows her teeth."
Simone de Beauvoir: "Madame Vigée-Lebrun never wearied of putting her smiling maternity on her canvases."
In 1776 Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun married Jean-Baptiste Le Brun, an artist, and art dealer. The couple gave birth to their daughter, Jeanne-Julie-Louise.
