Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Vigée-Lebrun, Élisabeth Louise

French, 1755 - 1842

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French portrait painter (1755–1842)

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Shown from the knees up, a young woman with pale skin, wearing a short wine-red jacket over an ivory-white gown, gazes out at us from this vertical portrait painting. She sits in a chair surrounded by emerald-green cushions, which are covered with a light green floral pattern. The woman’s shoulders are squared toward us as her knees angle slightly to our right. The skirt of her gown is patterned with coin-sized gold dots against the white background, and the scooped neckline of her bodice is trimmed with gold ribbon. The top of at least four buttons on her velvet jacket are buttoned under her bust, and a cinnamon-brown belt with an iron-gray buckle, perhaps a cameo, cinches her waist. Her long, ash-brown hair is loosely pulled up with curls faming her face and falling to her shoulders. One braided plait is interwoven through a loose white turban, the ends of which drape over her shoulders. She has gray eyes under thin brows, a rose-red bow mouth, and her cheeks are tinged with pink. Gleaming, laurel-green drop earrings dangle from her ears. Her right arm, to our left, rests on an oversized green cushion, which balances on the carved, gold arm of her chair. Soft light from the upper left glints on the gold ribbons of the turban and cushion, and on her earrings and jacket buttons. The wall behind her is mottled with smoke gray and moss green. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the upper right, “Mde Le Brun 1789.”
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Madame d'Aguesseau de Fresnes, 1789, oil on wood, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.16

Madame d'Aguesseau de Fresnes

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun · 1789 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1946.7.16

Shown from the shins up, two elegantly dressed women and two young boys, all with light skin, sit together on a bench in front of a stone balustrade with a forest landscape beyond in this horizontal portrait painting. The people are brightly lit from our left but the darkened sky suggests dusk. The boys lean onto the woman at the center of the composition, and the second woman sits to her right, our left. All of the people have pale skin, rosy cheeks, delicate noses, and their pink lips all turn up in slight smiles. The woman on our left sits with her body angled toward her friend but she turns her face to look at us with brown eyes under curving brows. Her wavy, flint-gray hair is loosely bound up so it frames the sides of her face and curls over her shoulders. Her swirling, white head covering is edged in gold and tied in a bow over her left ear, on our right. Her long-sleeved dress has a tight-fitting bodice and a low, scooped neckline lined with pleated white fabric. Her dress shimmers from sapphire blue to dusky pink, suggesting it is iridescent taffeta. Large pearls hang off the end of round, gold, hoop earrings, and a glimmering gold sash is tied around her waist. She sits with her left hand resting on her friend’s right shoulder, closer to her, and she gestures toward one of the young boys leaning on the friend’s lap with her other hand. The second woman sits with her body facing us, and she looks off to our left with gray-blue eyes. Her silvery gray, upswept hair is covered with a long piece of white fabric with pink stripes, twisted loosely into a turban-like head covering. She wears dangling gold earrings, and her dress is striped with parchment white and rust red. Her right hand, on our left, rests on her friend’s knee, and her other arm is wrapped around the older boy. He kneels on the bench and leans forward, wrapping the arm we can see around her torso. His face near hers, he looks up at her from under his lashes. A dimple marks the flushed cheek we can see. His chestnut-brown hair falls around his shoulders, and he wears a gingerbread-brown suit. The smaller and younger of the two boys rests his head on his crossed hands on her thigh, and looks out at us. He wears a white garment with a lilac-purple sash tied in a bow around his waist. There is a pale pink rosebush in the lower right corner of the painting, near the kneeling boy’s foot. The landscape beyond the balustrade is filled with dark green trees against a slate-blue sky. The painting is created with blended brushstrokes, giving it a soft look.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de Rougé with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien, 1787, oil on canvas, Purchased as the Gift of the Bay Foundation in memory of Josephine Bay Paul and Ambassador Charles Ulrick Bay, 1964.11.1

The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de Rougé with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun · 1787 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1964.11.1

Shown from the knees up, a woman stands facing and looking at us with her head tilted a little to our left in this vertical portrait painting. She has pale skin, a heart-shaped face with rosy cheeks, and a rose-pink bow mouth. Thin, arched, sable-brown eyebrows frame her gray eyes. A wreath of pale pink flowers and curling white ostrich feathers crowns her long gray hair, which is piled high on her head. Loose curly tendrils brush both shoulders. Her glowing, silver satin gown is trimmed with delicate sheer lace around the wide, plunging neckline and sleeves, and has a pink sash around her narrow waist. Pearl bracelets adorn her wrists. She leans to her left, our right, to rest her left elbow against a waist-high, cinnamon-brown stone pedestal, which is decorated with a bronze-colored garland and bow on the side facing us. A ring of blue, yellow, red, and pink flowers, woven with strands of ivy, dangles in the hand resting on the pedestal. Her right hand hangs loosely by her side. Along the left edge of the dimly lit background, a tree with a thick trunk angles into the upper left corner. A smaller sapling grows just in front of it. On the right, bushes with olive and fern-green leaves dotted with lilac-purple flecks rise above the pedestal. Dark clouds fill most of the top third of the canvas but they part around her head to reveal the soft blue sky. The artist signed and dated the work in white in the lower right corner, “L. Vigée Le Brun 1782.”
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Madame du Barry, 1782, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2014.136.36

Madame du Barry

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun · 1782 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.136.36

Bibliography

1793

  • Le Brun, Jean Baptiste Pierre. Précis historique de la vie de la citoyenne Lebrun, peintre. Paris, n.d. [1793].

1828

  • Le Franc, Justin Tripier. “Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Madame Vigée Le Brun.” Journal dictionnaire de biographie. Paris, 1828: 177–192

1835

  • Vigée Le Brun, Élisabeth Louise. Souvenirs de Madame Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. 3 vols. Paris, 1835–1837.

1903

  • Vigée Le Brun, Élisabeth Louise. “Énoncé de différents bruits que j’ai eu à supporter jusqu’à ce moment (1829).” In Princess Natalia Kourakin, Souvenirs de voyage. Moscow, 1903: 471–483.

1908

  • Nolhac, Pierre de. Madame Vigée-Le Brun, peintre de la reine Marie-Antoinette (1755–1842). Catalogue by H. Pannier. Paris, 1908.

1915

  • Helm, William Henry. Vigée-Lebrun, 1755–1842: Her Life, Works and Friendships. London, n.d. [1915].

1917

  • Hautecoeur, Louis. Madame Vigée-Lebrun: étude critique. Paris, n.d. [1917].

1919

  • Blum, André. Madame Vigée-Lebrun, peintre des grandes dames du xv iiie siècle. Paris, 1919.

1981

  • Baillio, Joseph. “Le dossier d’une oeuvre d’actualité politique: Marie-Antoinette et ses enfants par Madame Vigée Le Brun.” L’Oeil 308 (March 1981): 34–41, 74–75, and 310 (May 1981): 53–60, 90–91.

1982

  • Baillio, Joseph. Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. Exh. cat. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1982.

1988

  • Baillio, Joseph. “Vigée Le Brun and the Classical Practice of Imitation.” Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University, 4. University Park, Pa., 1988: 94–125.

1997

  • Goodden, Angelica. The Sweetness of Life: A Biography of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. London, 1997.

2008

  • Vigée Le Brun, Élisabeth Louise. Souvenirs (1755–1842). Ed. Geneviève Haroche Bouzinac. Paris, 2008.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: 435-436.