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VIGÉE-LEBRUN, ELISABETH (1755–1842)

VIGÉE-LEBRUN, ELISABETH (1755–1842), French painter. Known primarily for her portraits, Vigée-Lebrun was a favorite artist of aristocratic patrons throughout Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, the most famous of whom was Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1755–1793). Vigée-Lebrun was born in Paris, the daughter of a hairdresser from the province of Luxembourg, Jeanne Maissin, and a minor portraitist, Louis Vigée, who was a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc. Her father gave her drawing lessons in his studio when she was twelve, although he died shortly after they began. She then studied drawing with two minor artists, Blaise Bocquet and Gabriel Briard. By her own account, she was largely self-taught, copying Old Master paintings in private collections she visited in the company of her mother. By the age of fifteen, she had established herself as a professional portraitist but practiced without a license. In 1774, after her studio had been seized by officers of the Châtelet (royal tribunal in Paris), she applied for membership in the Académie de Saint-Luc, exhibiting several works in the Salon de Saint-Luc that same year. Her ambition, however, was to be received as a history painter by the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture.

During the late 1770s, Vigée-Lebrun completed several history paintings but remained barred from acceptance into the Académie Royale because of the commercial dealings of husband, Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun, an art dealer. Upon Marie Antoinette's intervention, however, the honor of full membership was granted on 31 May 1783. (Her reception piece, Peace Bringing Back Abundance (1780), is now in the collection of the Louvre Museum). The minutes of the meeting at which Vigée-Lebrun was accepted for membership state that the academicians acted to execute "with profound respect the orders of its Sovereign." However, her painting was assigned no category.

Although Vigée-Lebrun was never apprenticed to a master painter and was prohibited by her sex from becoming a student at the Académie Royale, she nevertheless profited from her study of leading artists from the French school. She was greatly influenced by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), particularly in terms of her technique, which uses a buildup of transparent glazes to generate highly polished surface textures in areas of flesh and drapery. As with Greuze, her lack of academic training contributed to this reliance on the use of color, rather than line, to define form. Her approach to composition in many of her large state commissions, such as the Portrait of Marie Antoinette (1778; Musée national du Château de Versailles) follows the illustrious examples of portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud and Jean Marc Nattier, favorite court artists during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, respectively.

Vigée-Lebrun's debt to the Old Masters is evident in her highly sought-after maternités (mother and daughter images), which register a direct lineage back to the Madonnas of Raphael, and in her Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat (1783; National Gallery of Art, London), which deliberately quotes a portrait by Peter Paul Rubens. While some scholars consider this work to be a straightforward tribute to the celebrated courtier-artist, others regard it as a clever assertion on the part of Vigée-Lebrun of her ability to assume a similar place in history. Indeed, her aspirations to enjoy the elevated status of a history painter would be satisfied not by following the usual paths of academic progress, but through her novel conceptions in the realm of portraiture that challenged notions of conventional subject hierarchies and divisions between genres.

PATRONAGE AND PRESTIGE

Vigée-Lebrun received her first royal commission in 1776, executing several portraits of the king's brother, the comte de Provence (whereabouts unknown). Two years later, she was called upon to paint the queen. Marie Antoinette had been searching for an artist who would best capture her likeness, and she responded to Vigée-Lebrun's singular ability to lend an informal air to the requirements of royal portraiture. Her Portrait of Marie-Antoinette with Her Children (1787; Musée national du Château de Versailles) is a brilliant combination of tradition and innovation. In this painting, Vigée-Lebrun follows the conventions of state portraiture by looking back to Nattier's portraits of Queen Marie-Leczinska and Madame Adélaïde (the wife and daughter of Louis XV) in the construction of her composition; however, she adds a contemporary reference to the popular idea of the "good mother" by merging the ceremony of state with the intimacy of family. This painting also transcends the limitations of a single genre by treating the portrait as both a history painting and a scene of everyday life.

Equally novel was the Portrait of Marie-Antoinette (1783; private collection, Germany) en chemise in which the sitter wears a simple, sheer white muslin dress and straw hat. This remarkably casual portrait caused a sensation at the salon, where it was said that the queen appeared in her underwear. While many critics commented on the impropriety of such a representation, which was not formal enough to suit contemporary standards, this painting and others like it influenced the course of costume development in France. Such portraits popularized a new look of loosely constructed garments, unpowdered hair, and natural curls—as opposed to the conventional French dress that required corsets and ornate wigs.

In addition to her activities as a painter, Vigée-Lebrun hosted one of the most fashionable salons in Paris, where music, literature, and the arts were topics of conversation. Her famous souper grec (Greek supper) took place in 1788, an impromptu event inspired by literary recitations at which guests donned Greek attire and dined on a menu prepared from ancient recipes, served on a collection of archaic pottery. The entire affair was orchestrated by Vigée-Lebrun and took on the character of a tableau vivant (living painting). The expense of the event was greatly exaggerated by rumors, resulting in her vilification in scandal sheets. In the late 1780s, she increasingly became a figure of controversy.

A staunch royalist throughout her life, Vigée-Lebrun profited from her service to the French court, but this allegiance also forced her into exile during the Revolution of 1789, accompanied by her only child, Jeanne Julie Louise (born 12 February 1780). Her prestigious reputation did not fail her, and she continued to work in aristocratic circles, traveling first to Italy, then Austria, Germany, and Russia. She enjoyed great success at these foreign courts, securing her fortune before she was repatriated in 1801. While she continued to paint late in life, the energies of her last years were devoted to composing her memoirs, the first installment of which was published by Hippolyte Fournier in 1835. Vigée-Lebrun died in Paris at the age of eighty-seven.

See also Art: Artistic Patronage; France, Art in; Marie Antoinette; Women and Art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

The Memoirs of Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun. Translated by Siân Evans. Bloomington, Ind., 1989.

Secondary Sources

Baillio, Joseph. Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 1755–1842. Exh. cat. Fort Worth, 1982.

——. "Le dossier d'une oeuvre d'actualité politique: Marie-Antoinette et ses enfants par Mme Vigée Lebrun." L'oeil 308 (March 1981): 34–41 and 74–75; and L'oeil 310 (May 1981): 53–60; 90–91.

Goodden, Angelica. The Sweetness of Life: A Biography of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. London, 1997.

Radisich, Paula. "Qui peut definer les femmes? Vigée-Lebrun's Portraits of an Artist." Eighteenth-Century Studies 25 (Summer 1992): 441–468.

Sheriff, Mary D. "The Cradle Is Empty: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Marie-Antoinette, and the Problem of Intention." In Women, Art and the Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe. London, 2003.

——. The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art. Chicago and London, 1996.

JENNIFER D. MILAM