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Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a great painter of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, protected by Marie Antoinette, her paintings are a gateway to History.
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Louise-Elisabeth Vigée was born in Paris, rue Coquillère, on April 16, 1755. Daughter of the pastellist Louis Vigée and Jeanne Maissin, a hairdresser, she was raised by a wet nurse near Epernon in Eure-et-Loire. At the age of 6, she left the countryside and entered the school of the Trinité convent. Even at that time, Elisabeth drew and constantly impressed her artist father, who gave her some lessons.
Unfortunately, Louis Vigée died of sepsis in 1767 when Elisabeth was 12 years old. He never knew the success of his daughter, who, to better accept the loss of her father, became passionate about painting and drawing. She then took lessons from Gabriel-François Doyen, a history painter, and then from Gabriel Briard, who allowed her to enter his workshop at the Louvre. It was at the Louvre that Elisabeth met Vernet, one of the most popular painters in Europe at the time. He and Jean-Baptiste Greuze advised the young artist.
It was by copying canvases from great masters such as Rembrandt or Van Dyck that the artist improved her technique. Elisabeth declared in her memoirs: 'One could exactly compare me to the bee, as I gathered so much knowledge there...'. At the time, female artists were not admitted to art schools; they were prevented from training in history painting and were confined to still lifes or miniatures.
Nevertheless, in 1770, when she was only 15, her portrait of her mother, Madame Le Sèvre, made her known. It was at this age that she became a professional painter. Two years later, two of her portraits earned her the right to participate in the public sessions of the Royal Academy. A stroke of luck for the artist! The same year, she met Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, art dealer and restorer of paintings. Very quickly, he became her agent and husband.
The year 1776 marked her entry into the Court with a commission for the Count of Provence, the King's brother. She was admitted to work for the Court of Louis XVI and became the official painter of Queen Marie Antoinette.
Success was at hand for Elisabeth. Her studio and private hotel were fashionable, her canvases sold well, orders poured in from all over Europe... Until the Revolution, which marked a turning point in the artist's career.
While she was painting the portrait of the Countess du Barry, Elisabeth heard the cannon fire in Paris. It was the summer of 1789. While her private hotel was sacked by sans-culottes, she and her daughter left Paris for Italy, Austria, or England. During her European tour, she painted for the high aristocracy and sent her canvases to Paris. She was also invited to St. Petersburg, where she stayed for several years at the Countess Saltykoff's, painting for the Russian bourgeoisie.
Elisabeth Vigée did not return to France until 1802, after being removed from the list of émigrés following a petition signed by more than 250 artists. She did not stay long and settled for some time in London. On her return to France in 1809, the artist settled in Louveciennes; she continued to paint, and her paintings were once again hung in the Louvre or in the most beautiful châteaux. It was at the end of her life that she wrote a short biography and her memoirs, published in 1835.
Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who went blind and had no family, died in Paris on March 30, 1842 at the age of 87; she was buried in Louveciennes. Three-quarters of the artist's works are portraits. She had over 650 of them. Very popular during her lifetime, the artist was criticized a century later by the feminist movement before falling into oblivion.