Everything about Lisabeth-louise Vig E-le Brun totally explained
Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun (
April 16,
1755 -
March 30,
1842) was a French
painter, and is recognized as the most famous woman painter of the
eighteenth century. Her style is generally considered
Rococo and shows intrest in the subject of
neoclassical painting. Vigée-Le Brun can't be considered a purely Neoclassist in that she creates mostly portraits in Neoclassical dress rather than the
History painting. In her choice of color and style while serving as the portrait painter to the Queen is purely
Rococo.
She was born in
Paris,
Marie Élisabeth-Louise Vigée, the daughter of a portraitist and fan painter, Louis Vigée, from whom she received her first instruction. She also benefited by the advice of
Gabriel François Doyen,
Jean-Baptiste Greuze,
Joseph Vernet, and other masters of the period.
By the time she was in her early teens, she was painting portraits professionally. After her studio was seized, for practicing without a license, she applied to the
Académie de Saint Luc, which willingly exhibited her works in their Salon. On
25 October 1774, she was made a member of the Académie.
In 1776, she married Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, a painter and art dealer. She painted portraits of many of the nobility of the day and as her career blossomed, she was invited to the
Palace of Versailles to paint
Marie Antoinette, the French Queen consort.
So pleased was the queen that over the next several years, Vigée-Le Brun was commissioned to do numerous portraits of the queen, her children, and other members of the royal family and household.
In 1781 she and her husband toured
Flanders and the
Netherlands where seeing the works of the Flemish masters inspired her to try new techniques. There, she painted portraits of some of the nobility, including the
Prince of Nassau.
On
May 31,
1783, Vigée Le Brun was accepted as a member of France's
Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture as a painter of historical allegory.
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard also was admitted on the same day.
The admission of Vigée-Le Brun was opposed on the grounds that her husband was an art dealer, but eventually they were overruled by an order from
Louis XVI because Marie-Antoinette put considerable pressure on her husband on behalf of her painter.
The admission of more than one woman on the same day to the Académie encouraged comparisons among the works of the women instead of one woman contrasted with the existing members, who were men.
In 1789, she was succeeded as court painter to Marie Antoinette by
Alexander Kucharsky.
After the arrest of the royal family during the
French Revolution Vigée-Le Brun fled France. She lived and worked for some years in
Italy,
Austria, and
Russia, where her experience in dealing with an aristocratic
clientèle was still useful. In
Rome, her paintings met with great critical acclaim and she was elected to the Roman
Accademia di San Luca.
In Russia, she was received by the nobility and painted numerous members of the family of
Catherine the Great. While there, Vigée-Le Brun was made a member of the
Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Petersburg.
She was welcomed back to France during the reign of Emperor
Napoleon I. Much in demand by the
élite of
Europe, she visited
England at the beginning of the nineteenth century and painted the portrait of several British notables including
Lord Byron. In 1807 she traveled to
Switzerland and was made an honorary member of the
Société pour l'Avancement des Beaux-Arts of
Geneva.
She published her memoirs in 1835 and 1837, which provide an interesting view of the training of artists at the end of the period dominated by royal academies. Her portrait of fellow neoclassical painter,
Hubert Robert, is in Paris at
Musee National du Louvre.
Still very active with her painting in her fifties, she purchased a house in
Louveciennes,
Île-de-France, and lived there until the house was seized by the
Prussian Army during the
war in 1814. She stayed in Paris until her death on
March 30,
1842 when her body was taken back to
Louveciennes and buried in the cemetery near her old home.
Her tombstone
epitaph states "
Ici, enfin, je repose…" (Here, at last, I rest…).
Vigée-Le Brun left a legacy of 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to private collections, her works may be found at major museums, such as
Hermitage Museum,
London's National Gallery, in
Europe and the
United States.
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