_Madame Vigée Le Brun_ (French: 1755-1842).
All visitors to Paris know this charming artist. Her two
portraits of herself with her little girl in her arms are in
the Louvre, and engravings or photographs of them are in every
printseller's window. They are characteristic of her refined
drawing, her limpid and transparent colour, her graceful
sentiment. She excelled in rendering the candour of innocence,
the charm of childhood, and maternal tenderness. She aimed
rather at a certain ideal of soft and smiling beauty than at
realism of portraiture. Some of her personages, even those in
the highest ranks of life, seem, it has been well said, to
have traversed the sentimental scenes of the tender Greuze,
and she was fond of enveloping her sitters in semi-allegorical
surroundings. If she cannot be reckoned among the great
portrait-painters, she yet shows a power which is rare among
artists of her sex, and a charming style of her own which will
always make her works attractive. Madame le Brun was herself
one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of her time.
Elizabeth Louise Vigée was born in Paris, and her early years
were spent in the studio of her father, who was a painter, and
among other artistic surroundings. Her own talents rapidly
developed; by the time she was 15 she had many commissions,
and at 20 she was already celebrated. Her beauty and social
charm soon gained for her the friendship of the greatest men
and women of the day, including La Harpe, D'Alembert, and
Marie Antoinette. With the Queen she was a great favourite.
She painted her portrait in 1779, and afterwards no less than
thirty times. She was made a member of the Royal Academy of
Painting in 1780, but when the Revolution broke out she left
Paris in haste. She went from capital to capital; in each
in turn the charm of her person and manner made her many
friends, and she was always full of commissions. In 1795 she
settled for some years at St. Petersburg, where she enjoyed
the favour of the Imperial Court. In 1802 she came for three
years to England, where she painted portraits of the Prince
of Wales and Lord Byron, among others. She was a favourite
wherever she went, but in spite of all the adulation she
received she remained simple and natural to the end. When she
returned to Paris, her salon became the rendezvous of the
most distinguished writers, painters, and politicians of that
brilliant period, and her _Souvenirs_, published in 1837, are
crowded with interesting sketches of her friends. In this frank
and engaging autobiography she gives us particulars of the
worthless husband--M. Le Brun, a picture-dealer whom she had
married when she was 20. He squandered her fortune, but she
found unfailing consolation in the daughter whom she presses
to her in those portraits in the Louvre. She outlived both her
daughter and her husband by many years and died at the age of
87.
This portrait was painted by the artist in her 27th year. Its
acquisition for the National Gallery is specially interesting, for
it was painted in emulation of the celebrated "Chapeau de Paille" of
Rubens (No. 852). She had seen and admired that work at Antwerp in
1782, and determined to represent herself in a similar effect of shadow
and reflected light. The portrait had so great a success that it gained
her admission to the Académie, where she was received in the following
year, 1783.