Art Chowder September | October Issue No. 29 | Page 35

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842)
certainly had her own story to tell and the word “vast”
is no exaggeration, given her long career, prodigious
output, and the sheer number of persons, places,
and events, spanning nearly six decades, contained
in her Souvenirs. Stories within stories, all real. She
was there. Her life and work form an interwoven,
compelling field of study, offering windows into a
world and ways of life largely alien to postmodern,
postindustrial sensibilities.
Mme. Le Brun’s odyssey during the twelve years of her
exile took her, most notably by the numbers of works
she created, to Rome, Naples, Vienna, and Russia,
where she lived for six years — a working Grand
Tour of the courts and cultural capitals of Europe. Her
clientele and social sphere formed a kind of Who’s Who
of countesses, barons, kings, queens, even emperors,
along with artists, actors, singers, and musicians. This
was an age of intellectual inquiry and conversation,
and civility, of which today we seem almost completely
devoid. Delving into this bygone world of refinement,
excellence, and grandeur can offer a respite from a
daily diet of bad news and crassness all around, or so I
find.
Her memoirs are so rich and her pictorial output so
enormous that the most that can be done here is to note
a few highlights. It’s to be expected that some of any
artist’s paintings are better than others. While there is
no substitute for viewing the original artwork, some
museums have very high resolution digital images with
an exceptional degree of detail far beyond a printed
reproduction. One example is an exquisite detail
from Le Brun’s portrait of Marie-Antoinette with her
children. The lace sleeve of the queen’s eldest daughter
is a marvel of delicacy worthy of royalty.
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun — (Image to left on page 34)
Portrait of the Baronne de Crussol Florensac .
1785
Oil on wood
44 3/4 x 33 1/8”
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Portrait of Giovanni Paisiello
1791
Oil on canvas
51.4 x 38.7”
Château de Versailles
The baroness holds a musical score, “Hymn to Echo and Narcissus” by Christoph von
Gluck (1714-1787), first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris, in 1779.
With her mouth slightly open as she turns toward the viewer, one imagines the baroness
is likely a singer. Both the lyrics and musical notes are so perfectly lined up on the slightly
curved page as to be both singable and playable, a tour de force in its own right for any
artist.
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Marie-Antoinette with Her Children (detail)
1787
Oil on canvas
108 1/4 x 85 1/4”
Château de Versailles
September | October 2020 35