In her memoir, Vigée Le Brun directly stated her feelings about her step-father: "I hated this man even more so since he made use of my father's personal possessions. In 1768, her mother married a wealthy (but stingy) jeweller, Jacques-François Le Sèvre, and shortly after, the family moved to the Rue Saint-Honoré, close to the Palais Royal. Her father died when she was 12 years old.
In 1760, at the age of five, she entered a convent, where she remained until 1766. The criticism for this portrait's casual spontaneity had been so intense that Le Brun had it removed only a few days after it was displayed in the salon of 1783, and quickly made a copy of it with the Queen wearing a muslin dress, which was displayed instead.īorn in Paris on 16 April 1755, Élisabeth Louise Vigée was the daughter of Jeanne ( née Maisin 1728–1800), a hairdresser from a peasant background, and Louis Vigée, a portraitist, pastellist and member of the Académie de Saint-Luc, was jubilant at her artistic inclinations in her childhood, and from whom she received her first instruction. Her personal habitus was characterized by a high sensitivity to sound, sight and smell.īetween 18, when Vigée Le Brun was in her 80s, she published her memoirs in three volumes ( Souvenirs), which also contained many pen portraits and advice for young portraitists.
In addition to many works in private collections, her paintings are owned by major museums, such as the Louvre in Paris, Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and many other collections in Europe and the United States. Vigée Le Brun created 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. Some famous contemporary artists, such as Joshua Reynolds, viewed her as one of the greatest portraitists of her time, comparing her with the old Dutch masters. She enjoyed the patronage of European aristocrats, actors, and writers, and was elected to art academies in ten cities. Vigée Le Brun created a name for herself in Ancien Régime society by serving as the portrait painter to Marie Antoinette. Her subject matter and color palette can be classified as Rococo, but her style is aligned with the emergence of Neoclassicism.
Her artistic style is generally considered part of the aftermath of Rococo with elements of an adopted Neoclassical style. Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun ( French: 16 April 1755 – 30 March 1842), also known as Madame Le Brun, was a French portrait painter, especially of women, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
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