MADAME LEBRUN AND HER DAUGHTER
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MADAME LEBRUN AND HER DAUGHTER
Questions to arouse interest. What do you see in this picture? What relation are these two to each other? Why do you think so? How are they dressed? Why do you suppose they look so happy? How could Madame Lebrun paint this picture of herself? From what direction does the light come? Why do you like the picture?
Original Picture: The Louvre, Paris, France.
Artist: Madame Vigée-Lebrun (lē brŭN´).
Birthplace: Paris, France.
Dates: Born, 1755; died, 1842.
The story of the picture. Probably we think we know just how we look and yet I wonder how many of us could tell it to an artist so plainly that he would be able to paint our portrait. Perhaps at best all we could tell him would be that his picture did not look like us, though without knowing why. But it is true that many great artists have painted their own portraits, and very good likenesses they are, too. In some ways it ought to be easy, for as they are their own models they can sit for their pictures as often and as long as they wish.
Madame Lebrun had been planning for some time perhaps to paint a portrait of herself. Then, just as she was all ready and seated in front of a long mirror, the door had opened suddenly and in had come her little daughter. With a hop and a jump she had thrown herself into her mother’s arms. Then with her arms still about her mother’s neck, she had happened to think of the mirror, and half turning there she had seen herself held close in her mother’s embrace. Madame Lebrun realized at once what a lovely picture it would make, and so she began to paint it.