Art Chowder September | October Issue No. 29 | Page 37

After Italy Mme. Le Brun traveled to Vienna, where in her memoirs she lists 29 paintings and 24 pastels. Two of the former were of the young, lovely Princess Liechtenstein, whom she describes as “very well made: her pretty face having a sweet and heavenly expression, which gave me the idea of representing her as Iris. She was painted standing, springing into the air.” She painted her barefoot, which scandalized members of the family for the princess to appear without shoes, and recounts how the prince, who commissioned the work, found a little pair of slippers and placed them under the portrait, explaining to the grandparents that her shoes came off and fell to earth. The smaller bust-length version shown here was also painted in Vienna. Here, with the angle of the subject’s torso and the flowing long curls of her hair, the artist employs devices she used to give a sense of lively movement. Departing Vienna in April 1795 and passing through Prague, Dresden, and Berlin, Mme. Le Brun reached St. Petersburg in July. Scarcely twenty-four hours later the French Ambassador called to inform her that the empress would receive her the next afternoon at one o’clock. With little time to freshen up and none to aquire an appropriate court gown, she was a bit anxious to find herself “tête-à-tête with the autocrat of all the Russias. Catherine greeted her kindly, “I am charmed, madame, to receive you here; your reputation preceded you. I very much love the arts, painting above all. I am not a connoiseur, but an amateur,” and proceeded to wish that she would enjoy Russia enough to stay a long time, all with such grand benevolence that her timidity vanished. Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Grand Duchesses Alexandra Pavlovna and Elena Pavlovna 1796 oil on canvas 391/4 x 39 1/4” Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg The younger of the two on the right holds a miniature of their grandmother, Catherine II. Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Princess Karoline von Liechtenstein (née Countess von Manderscheit) as Iris 1793 Oil on canvas 25 3/4 x 21 1/8” Private collection September | October 2020 37