1755 - 1842
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le brun
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Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Madame Grand (Noël Catherine Vorlée, 1761-1835), 1783, oil on canvas, The Met.
Painting Royalty
Nobility portraiture stood at the forefront of Madame Le Brun’s artistic success. Her unwavering commitment to Queen Marie Antoinette paved the way for her to become the official portraitist of the Queen.
In 1774, at 19, Madame Le Brun entered the Académie de Saint-Luc, where she fostered her passion for painting (1). Only a short time later, in 1778, the French Court summoned her to paint Marie Antoinette (2). Thereafter, she became deeply associated with the French monarchy as its appointed portraitist, and Antoinette became her main subject.
In her time with French royalty, Le Brun created over 30 portraits of the royal family, gaining accreditation by the public and salons (3). In the wake of the French Revolution and revolt against monarchist values, Le Brun, alongside her daughter, Julie, fled France. Escaping association and ties with the queen through exile, the pair spent time in Florence, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Naples while away (4). During exile, the public subjected Marie Antoinette to execution in 1793, deeply impacting Le Brun.
However, in the early 19th century, Le Brun and Julie returned to France. During their time in exile, Le Brun continued to paint. At that, Le Brun’s ties to nobility served her well in gaining entrance into hierarchical circles despite her association. She painted others, such as the family members of Catherine the Great and Napoleon I (5).
Motherhood
Another theme common to Madame Le Brun’s work is motherhood. Both in tandem with the depiction of herself and alone, Le Brun commonly depicted her daughter, Jeanne Julie Louise Le Brun (often otherwise associated as ‘Julie’ or ‘Brunette’). Though the two had turbulent relations at times, particularly with her daughter's marriage to Gaëtan Bernard Nigris, earlier in her career, Madame Le Brun depicted several images of herself with Julie, illustrating her interest in maternal connections (6).
However, Julie died in 1819, with her mother, Madame Le Brun, outliving her by two decades. During this time, Le Brun self-published her autobiographies Souvenirs in the late 1930s, contextualizing her relation and perspective regarding her daughter's life (7). Though her autobiographies came with substantial criticism due to her out projection and ‘maternal blindness,’ scholars pointed out that Le Brun identified closely with her daughter’s identity as an extension of hers (8). Throughout her career, Le Brun submitted at least four portraits featuring her daughter.
Though her motherly relations are intuitively associated with her depictions of Julie, Le Brun often encountered the dynamic of mother-daughter relations through her sitters. Famously known for Marie Antoinette's portrait with her children. Only through speculation can scholars draw the inference of Le Brun's projection of her own marriage with Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, where he reaped benefits despite his habits of gambling and prostitution from his marriage to Madame. It was not until exile that the pair formally divorced, yet this draws on the heteronormativity of marital expectations and how this dynamic impacted her view of Julie’s choices.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Julie Le Brun (1780-1819) Looking in a Mirror, 1787, oil on canvas, The Met.
Biography
Born as Élisabeth Louise Vigée, later known as Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun through her marriage to Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, she depicted French royalty and beyond. To many, and French royalty, she was referred to as Madame Le Brun. Her father, Louis, was most influential in her life, increasing her skill through his background in art and pastels before his passing. After her time at Trinity Convent School, Le Brun had her own art studio in 1770, where she was only fifteen at the time (9).
After several years of studio work, Le Brun was accepted into the Académie de Saint-Luc in 1774 (10). At this time, Vigée had her first works exhibited at the age of 19. Two years later, she married art dealer and painter Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun in 1776. The marriage situated her in the French artistic scene, but her husband's association was not without backlash in the artistic community, as seen several years later in her life.
Four years after Madame Le Brun's admission to the academy, the French Court called her to Versailles to paint the Queen, Marie Antoinette, in 1778 (11). Her relationship with French royalty flourished as she became the queen's official painter. Her success in painting did not halt after the birth of her daughter, Julie, in 1780, as Madame Le Brun's work continued to be sought out, and her artistic peak spanned over a decade between 15-20 years.
Madame Le Brun was initially barred from admission to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1783 due to her association with art commerce and dealings related to her husband's work. However, Le Brun’s strong association with the French king and queen directly overrode this conflict, leading to her admission in the Académie in May of 1783, making her one of the few women admitted. The number of women at this point was limited to four, and Le Brun, alongside her relative competitor Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, was accepted (12).
Turmoil for Le Brun and the French royal court started in the late 1780s, as the French Revolution revolting against the monarchy. Le Brun fled in 1789 with her daughter, leaving behind her husband. Within five years, Le Brun had gone through a divorce in 1794, although he benefited financially from their marriage, and even during their time apart, with Le Brun and Julie in exile. Madame Le Brun and Julie spent time traveling around Europe before formally returning to France in 1802 (13). At this time, she was still financially supporting herself through the portraiture of regents who were willing and financially able to compensate for the artwork produced.
Le Brun continued her artist career spanning her life. In later years, Le Brun turned to writing her experiences through Souvenirs, published between 1835 - 1837. Nearing the end of her life, Le Brun recounted letters and experiences through these memoirs.
Formative Years
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was born in 1755 in Paris, France, to Louis Vigée and Jean Maissin. She had one younger brother, Étienne Vigée, who went on to become a renowned author and poet and is speculated to be depicted in her earlier portraiture work. Serving as a foundation for her interest, her father, Louis, invested in Elisabeth’s promising skills by acting as her first mentor.
Louis, though not as renowned as his daughter, was an artist who utilized and taught Elisabeth the ropes of pastels. At the age of six, Élisabeth was sent to a residential school at the Trinity Convent School, where she continued until eleven (14). Despite attending school away from home, Louis profoundly impacted Élisabeth’s life. Louis died when Le Brun was twelve, but the seed to grow in her artistic journey was already planted. A short while after her mother, Jean, and now stepfather, Jacques François Le Sèvre, married, Elisabeth continued to make progress. Élisabeth became a substantial source of income for the family before the age of 18, when she had already established her own studio then went on to participate in art guilds (15).
From what is known about her education, two influences are noted as mentors, Gabriel François Doyen and Pierre Davesne (16). However, little scholarly understanding is noted regarding their impact and practices, aside from the two's involvement in salon exhibitions and their association as artists.
Subject Matter
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette in a Park, ca. 1780-81, chalk, The Met.
Madame Le Brun is best known for her royal portraiture. However, she did create landscape paintings and historical paintings featured at the salon. As noted in art history, historical painting has been regarded as the top of the hierarchical painting scale. In the past, historical painting was designated for men at this time. Many of her oil paintings gained recognition, yet she worked with pastels alongside drawing. Frequently, her oil paintings were done on wood panels, then displayed or framed in traditional Rococo framing, exceptionally decorative and gold.
In her time, she created over 600 portraits of men, women, herself, and her daughter. Le Brun is speculated to have made over 900 paintings within her career (18). Madame Le Brun's style is described as a mixture of Rococo and neoclassical ideals pertinent to the time and geographical region that she lived in, despite her period of exile.
Associated Works
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Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Alexandre Charles Emmanuel de Crussol-Florensac (1743–1815), 1787, oil on wood, The Met.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Comtesse de la Châtre (Marie Charlotte Louise Perrette Aglaé Bontemps, 1789, oil on canvas, The Met.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Madame du Barry, 1782, oil on canvas, The National Gallery of Art.
Notes
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Catherine R. Montfort, “Self-Portraits, Portraits of Self: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Women Artists of the Eighteenth Century,” Pacific Coast Philology 40, no. 1 (2005): 5, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474166.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun,” Palace of Versailles, last modified April 7, 2023, https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/great-characters/elisabeth-louise-vigee-brun#official-artist-to-marie-antoinette.
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Deborah Kennedy, Eighteenth-Century Studies 50, no. 1 (2016): 118, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43956571.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, last modified April 15, 2025, https://nmwa.org/art/artists/elisabeth-louise-vigee-lebrun/.
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Vigée Le Brun: Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, February 15 - May 15, 2016 ; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 10 - September 11, 2016, Joseph Baillio, Katharine Baetjer, and Paul Lang, New York: The Metropolitan museum of art, https://www.metmuseum.org/met-publications/vigee-le-brun.
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Katharine Ann Jensen, “Mirrors, Marriage, and Nostalgia: Mother-Daughter Relations in Writings by Isabelle de Charrière and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 19, no. 2 (2000): 296, https://doi.org/10.2307/464431.
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Deborah Kennedy, Eighteenth-Century Studies 50, 120.
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Katharine Ann Jensen, “Mirrors, Marriage, and Nostalgia," 296.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun,” Palace of Versailles.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun,” Palace of Versailles.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun,” Palace of Versailles.
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Melissa L. Hyde, Joseph Baillio, Xavier Salmon, Katherine Baetjer, and Paul Lang, Early Modern Women 11, no. 2 (2017): 189, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26431491.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun,” Palace of Versailles.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun,” Palace of Versailles.
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“Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun,” National Museum of Women in the Arts.
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Katharine Baetjer, “Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842),” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun-1755-1842.
Bibliography
Baetjer, Katharine. “Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun-1755-1842.
Baillio, Joseph, Katharine Baetjer, and Paul Lang. 2016. Vigée Le Brun: Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, February 15 - May 15, 2016 ; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 10 - September 11, 2016. New York: The Metropolitan museum of art. https://www.metmuseum.org/met-publications/vigee-le-brun.
Hyde, Melissa L., Joseph Baillio, Xavier Salmon, Katherine Baetjer, and Paul Lang. Early Modern Women 11, no. 2 (2017): 179–91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26431491.
Jensen, Katharine Ann. “Mirrors, Marriage, and Nostalgia: Mother-Daughter Relations in Writings by Isabelle de Charrière and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 19, no. 2 (2000): 285–313. https://doi.org/10.2307/464431.
Kennedy, Deborah. Eighteenth-Century Studies 50, no. 1 (2016): 117–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43956571.
Montfort, Catherine R. “Self-Portraits, Portraits of Self: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Women Artists of the Eighteenth Century.” Pacific Coast Philology 40, no. 1 (2005): 1–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474166.
National Museum of Women in the Arts. “Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun.” Last modified April 15, 2025. https://nmwa.org/art/artists/elisabeth-louise-vigee-lebrun/.
Palace of Versailles. “Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.” Last modified April 7, 2023.
Rosenthal, Angela. “Infant Academies and the Childhood of Art: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s ‘Julie with a Mirror.’” Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no. 4 (2004): 605–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25098091.
Williams, Hannah. “Artists and the City: Mapping the Art Worlds of Eighteenth-Century Paris.” Urban History 46, no. 1 (2019): 106–31. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26589092.