Vigée-Lebrun
Wonderful Female Painters
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Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842)
Self-portrait (1790)
Vigée-Lebrun is the most renowned painter in the history of painting in one of the most important genre: the portrait.
Daughter of a portrait painter, admirer of the masters Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Dyck, Élisabeth was so talented that since she was 15 she was much requested. She painted without license though, because she was not affiliated to any Academy, since it was something that was hard to achieve and even more if you were a woman. Despite that, she supported her mother and brother with her income.
In a time of arranged marriages, her mother got her a good match: Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun, a rich man who was not really so much, since he was an incorrigible gambler and finally became another person to be supported by the young woman.
The court heard of her talent, and so Marie Antoinette invited her to portray her. She painted about 25 paintings of the Queen and was the favorite painter of the court and a kind of documentary maker of the way of life of the social class who was about to lose their head in the guillotine.
Her style is soft, kind, sophisticated, and decidedly rococo. She was convinced that she had to search for something beyond the physical appearance, transmit the person’s spirit in the detail. It was not just about technical perfection. That is why her portraits are full of life and so admired.
In this wonderful self-portrait, Vigée-Lebrun painted herself as she felt, as she was much older than the age represented in this painting.
Recommended links:
Characteristic Elements of Rococo Painting.
Artistic Movements from Classical Antiquity to Rococo.
The Touch of François Boucher.
The Fêtes Galantes of Watteau.
Wonderful Female Painters: Florine Settheimer and the Rococo Subversive.
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