Here Vigee Le Brun has promoted the Rousseauian ideal of a happy family, an image that the artist would later embrace in her own self-portraits.The elaborate and elegant clothing worn in both of these portraits of Marie Antoinette was not in keeping with the personal taste of the artist. It was commissioned by the state government for propagandistic purposes because the public hated the queen and regarded her as a bad mother.
The individual likeness, with its casual elegance and lush landscape background, is more typical of VigeeLe Brun's portraits, but the family grouping was one of her largest and best-known paintings. Two of her best known portraits of the queen, both located at Versailles, are Marie Antoinette Holding a Rose (I 784) and Marie Antoinette with Her Children (1787). Vigee Le Brun painted over twenty portraits of this Austrian-born monarch, beginning in 1778 and ending with the artist's own exile from France on the night the king and queen were taken prisoner by a Revolutionary mob on October 6, 1789. Her most important patron was the much maligned Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. These works included history paintings, as well as landscapes, but the majority were beautifully colored, deftly rendered, idealized likenesses of the most prominent aristocrats of her time. By her own estimate, she executed over nine hundred works during her eightyseven-year life, which spanned from 1755-1842. Nowhere can this be better seen than in the life and work of the French painter Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun.Įlisabeth Vigee Le Brun was one of the most successful and prolific portrait painters in history.
Elisabeth vigee le brun marie antoinette professional#
Even so, there were a number of eighteenth century women artists that became known for their talent, teaching, stylistic innovations, influence on other artists, and professional prosperity. Although this was eventually modified to include a maximum of four female academicians, the opportunities for women to achieve the fame and fortune of their male contemporaries was limited, and was made even moreso by their inability to train in the academic schools or attend life drawing classes. This resulted in restrictions on female memberships in many institutions and a ban altogether in the French Royal Academy, which voted in 1706 to no longer admit women. The eighteenth century witnessed a growing legion of professional women artists who competed with their male colleagues and each other for patronage and positions in the prestigious academies. Kathleen Russo,Phd, Florida Atlantic University
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