1653. PORTRAIT OF HERSELF.
Madame Vigée Le Brun (French: 1755-1842).
All visitors to Paris know this charming artist. Her two portraits of herself with her little girl in her arms are in the Louvre, and engravings or photographs of them are in every printseller's window. They are characteristic of her refined drawing, her limpid and transparent colour, her graceful sentiment. She excelled in rendering the candour of innocence, the charm of childhood, and maternal tenderness. She aimed rather at a certain ideal of soft and smiling beauty than at realism of portraiture. Some of her personages, even those in the highest ranks of life, seem, it has been well said, to have traversed the sentimental scenes of the tender Greuze, and she was fond of enveloping her sitters in semi-allegorical surroundings. If she cannot be reckoned among the great portrait-painters, she yet shows a power which is rare among artists of her sex, and a charming style of her own which will always make her works attractive. Madame le Brun was herself one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of her time. Elizabeth Louise Vigée was born in Paris, and her early years were spent in the studio of her father, who was a painter, and among other artistic surroundings. Her own talents rapidly developed; by the time she was 15 she had many commissions, and at 20 she was already celebrated. Her beauty and social charm soon gained for her the friendship of the greatest men and women of the day, including La Harpe, D'Alembert, and Marie Antoinette. With the Queen she was a great favourite. She painted her portrait in 1779, and afterwards no less than thirty times. She was made a member of the Royal Academy of Painting in 1780, but when the Revolution broke out she left Paris in haste. She went from capital to capital; in each in turn the charm of her person and manner made her many friends, and she was always full of commissions. In 1795 she settled for some years at St. Petersburg, where she enjoyed the favour of the Imperial Court. In 1802 she came for three years to England, where she painted portraits of the Prince of Wales and Lord Byron, among others. She was a favourite wherever she went, but in spite of all the adulation she received she remained simple and natural to the end. When she returned to Paris, her salon became the rendezvous of the most distinguished writers, painters, and politicians of that brilliant period, and her Souvenirs, published in 1837, are crowded with interesting sketches of her friends. In this frank and engaging autobiography she gives us particulars of the worthless husband—M. Le Brun, a picture-dealer whom she had married when she was 20. He squandered her fortune, but she found unfailing consolation in the daughter whom she presses to her in those portraits in the Louvre. She outlived both her daughter and her husband by many years and died at the age of 87.
This portrait was painted by the artist in her 27th year. Its acquisition for the National Gallery is specially interesting, for it was painted in emulation of the celebrated "Chapeau de Paille" of Rubens (No. 852). She had seen and admired that work at Antwerp in 1782, and determined to represent herself in a similar effect of shadow and reflected light. The portrait had so great a success that it gained her admission to the Académie, where she was received in the following year, 1783.