After her studio was seized for her practicing without a license, she applied to the Académie de Saint-Luc, which unwittingly exhibited her works in its Salon. Inspired by Raphael and Domenichino, she often draped her subjects in shawls and long scarves these styles would later become ubiquitous in her portraiture. She greatly disliked the contemporary High Rococo fashion, and often solicited her sitters to allow her to alter their apparel. Self-portrait at age sixteen, 1771, pastel.īy the time she was in her early teens, Élisabeth was painting portraits professionally. For most of her life, she signed her paintings, documents and letters as "Louise élisabeth Vigee Le Brun", although she acknowledged later in life that the correct baptismal order would be Élisabeth Louise. She also visited numerous private galleries, including those of Rendon de Boisset, the Duc de Praslin, and the Marquis de Levis the artist took notes and copied the works of old masters such as Van Dyke, Rubens and Rembrandt to improve her art.Īt an early age, she reversed the order of her given names, and was known among her inner circle as 'Louise'. After her father's death, her mother sought to raise her spirits by taking her to the Palais de Luxembourg's art gallery seeing the works of Peter Paul Rubens and other old masters left a great impression on her. He wore his clothes, just as they were, without altering them to fit his figure." During this period, Élisabeth benefited from the advice of Gabriel François Doyen, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Joseph Vernet, whose influence is evident in her portrait of her younger brother, playwright and poet Étienne Vigée. In her memoir, Vigée Le Brun directly stated her feelings about her stepfather: "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 mean 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, from infections after several surgical operations. She then worked as an assistant to her father's friend, the painter and poet Pierre Davesne, with whom she learned more about painting. Élisabeth exhibited artistic inclinations from her childhood, making a sketch of a bearded man at the age of seven or eight when he first saw her sketches her father was jubilant and exclaimed that "You will be a painter my child, if there ever was one", and started to give her lessons in art In 1760, at the age of five, she had entered a convent, where she remained until 1766. Biography Early life 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, who mostly specialized in painting with oils. They also contain many pen portraits as well as advice for young portraitists. Her personal habitus was characterized by a high sensitivity to sound, sight and smell.īetween 18, when Vigée Le Brun was in her eighties, with the help of her nieces Caroline Rivière and Eugénie Tripier Le Franc, she published her memoirs in three volumes ( Souvenirs), some of which are in epistolary format. 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 Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun or simply as Madame Le Brun, was a French painter who mostly specialized in portrait painting, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
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