Art Chowder September | October Issue No. 29 | Page 39

She went on to complain that
Mme. Murat regularly failed to
keep her appointments, so that the
summer nearly went by waiting for
her in vain. Then she would arrive,
having changed her hairstyle or dress
according to the latest changes in
fashion. Finally the artist announced,
loudly enough for the sitter to hear,
“I have painted real princesses who
never worried me, and never made
me wait,” followed parenthetically
in her written account with, “Mme.
Murat was unaware that ‘punctuality
is the politeness of kings,’ as Louis
XIV so well said.”
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Portrait of Tatiana Borisovna Potemkina
(née Princess Golitsyna,1797–1869)
1820
oil on canvas
42 7/8 x 32 ½ in. (108.9 x 82.6 cm.)
Private Collection
The portrait of Tatiana Borisovna
Potemkina, painted in Paris during the
reign of Louis XVIII, when the subject
was 23 years of age and the artist 65,
only recently came to light and was sold at
Christie’s in 2018.
The artist kept her sitters amused with
conversation and made comfortable on
a sofa with pillows. She would frequently
surround them with imaginary background
settings, as seen here.
There is so much more that could
be told, like the time during her
stay in England (1802-1805) when
she, Prince Bariatinski, 3 and several
other Russians went to visit the great
astronomer William Herschel, but
there is not space here to do so. After
travels in Switzerland in 1808-1809,
the remaining years of her life were
spent between Paris and her country
home in nearby Louveciennes, where
she completed her memoirs.
Endnotes
1. http://www.thehistorypages.
com/2018/12/01/david-mcculloughpainting-with-words/
2. Lead essay in Joseph Baillio, Katharine
Baetjer, and Paul Lang. Vigée Le
Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary
France, exhibition catalogue,
Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2016.
The exhibition contained 80 works,
which can be seen here. https://
www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/
objects?exhibitionId=%7B31a1bee1-137f-
4d0d-bf0c-751b9354bb6c%7D#!?page=0
&offset=20&perPage=20
3. In England she painted a number of
portraits, notably the Prince of Wales
and a stunning picture of the handsome
young Prince Ivan Bariantinsky, now in the
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Marie-Annuciade-Caroline Bonaparte,
queen of Naples, with her daughter
Laetitia-Joséphine Murat
1807
Oil on canvas
Château de Versailles
The finished painting is acceptable
but conventional and, one might say,
lacking in heart.
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