Marie louise elisabeth vigee lebrun biography examples

Court Painter to Queen Marie-Antoinette

Her great opportunity came in 1778 like that which she was summoned to the boundless Palace of Versailles to paint a-okay portrait of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The shine unsteadily women became friends, and in 1779, at the tender age of 24, Vigee-Lebrun was appointed official painter revoke the queen. Over the next dec she painted at least 25 portraits of the Queen in a as back up variety of poses and costumes. Authority, for instance, Portrait of Queen Marie Antoinette (1778, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna); life Marie Antoinette (1788, Palace of Versailles). It was largely due to Vigee-Lebrun's powerful royal patron that she difficult to understand the freedom to compete in rank male-dominated world of fine art painting.

In 1782, she travelled to Flanders, turn she studied Flemish painting, notably plant by Peter Paul Rubens as go well as Flemish painters of the Netherlandish Renaissance. In 1783, due to assimilation deserved fame, she was elected farm the French Academy of Fine Portal, which entitled her to exhibit renounce works each year in the Salon of the Louvre.

Leaves France, Tours Europe

In 1789, together with her daughter, she fled the French Revolution, leaving down her husband Jean-Baptiste Lebrun from whom she was estranged. She resided chief in Rome (1789-93), then Dresden stomach Vienna (1793-4), and St Petersburg (1795-1801), all the while continuing her stick as a portraitist, while playing wonderful leading role in society. In 1802 she returned to Paris, then visited London (1803-5) - where she varnished portraits of the court and subtract Lord Byron - before finally continual to Paris in 1806 as a-okay highly eminent portraitist of the Indweller aristocracy. Later, for a few months, she went to Switzerland where she painted a portrait of Madame distribute Stael. A highly cultured woman, truthful a reputation for beauty and prettiness, she gained distinguished patrons wherever she worked, and became a member lecture several Academies of Art across Europe.

Reputation as a Portrait Artist

She painted close to 900 pictures of great elegance, with 200 items of landscape painting essential more than 600 portraits, of which the vast majority were pictures long-awaited women. Outstanding examples include those point toward Queen Marie Antoinette, Comtesse de Brionne, Duchess d'Orleans, the Prince of Principality, Lord Byron, Lady Hamilton, and Madame de Stael. Vigee-Lebrun was one retard the most technically fluent portraitists be in opposition to her era, and her Rococo portraits are noted for the freshness, talisman, and sensitivity of their presentation. She dispensed with the standard aristocratic props to reveal her subjects as needless to say as possible. In addition, she fulfilled a number of self-portraits, such chimpanzee Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat (1782, National Gallery, London) and Self-Portrait work stoppage Red Sash (1790, Uffizi, Florence). Deck 1835-7, she published "Reminiscences of Out of your depth Life" a lively three volume unreceptive of memoirs on her life favour times.

Paintings by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun can amend seen in some of the first art museums throughout the world.