Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée -Lebrun (including Le Brun, born April 16, 1755 in Paris, † March 30, 1842 in Louveciennes ) was a French painter, who prepared numerous portraits of European nobility. Their works are attributed to the classicism.

Life

Childhood and youth

Louise - Élisabeth was born in Paris, the daughter of the painter Louis Vigée (1715-1767) and the hairdresser Jeanne Maissin (1728-1800) in the Rue Coquilliere and baptized in St- Eustache. At three months, she was sent to farmers by Épernon near Chartres, where she remained for five years. Back in Paris in 1760 it was housed in the convent boarding Couvent de la Trinité in the Rue de Charonne. There soon were the drawings of the young Louise - Élisabeth on in their notebooks and on the walls. The father was impressed by the drawings of his six -or seven- year-old daughter and told her a future as a painter ahead. In 1767 she left the boarding school, to live again with her parents. From her father she received first art lessons. After his death on May 9, Élisabeth deeper into the art of drawing, and took lessons with Gabriel Briard, a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, and later with Claude Joseph Vernet. The same year, her mother married the goldsmith Jacques -François Le Sevre.

The family moved to the rue Saint- Honoré, opposite the Palais Royal. During visits Élisabeth copied images of old masters from private collections. Your is said to have been one of the most beautiful women of Paris at a young age. At 15 she earned her money through professional portraits. Orders of admirers who had only one meeting with her in mind, she rejected. After her studio was closed in 1774 for lack of license, she applied to the Académie de Saint- Luc, where you agreed to exhibit their work. On October 25, 1774 she became a member of the Académie de Saint -Luc. After her stepfather had sat down to rest, the family rented an apartment in the Hôtel Lebrun in the Rue de Clery, which belonged to the painter and art dealer Jean -Baptiste- Pierre Lebrun.

Relationship with the royal house

On January 11, 1776 Élisabeth Vigée married Jean -Baptiste- Pierre Lebrun. Your business flourished; she painted many members of the nobility. 1778 Finally, she was called to Versailles to make a portrait of Marie Antoinette. The Queen was so impressed that Vigée -Lebrun received orders for numerous other portraits of the royal family. On 12 February 1780 their only child, Jeanne Julie Louise, was born.

From May to June 1781 Élisabeth traveled with her husband by Flanders and the Netherlands, where the works of the Flemish masters caused her to try out new painting techniques. In addition, she painted portraits of some nobleman, including the Prince of Nassau.

On May 31, 1783 Vigée -Lebrun member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as a painter of historical allegory. Next to her also Adélaïde Labille - Guiard was recorded on the same day. The male leaders were opposed to the inclusion Vigée- Lebrun, but eventually were by the command of Louis XVI. forced after Marie- Antoinette had asked her husband to do so.

In August, she presented for the first time from their work in the Salon of the Académie; the opinion about their works was divided. Élisabeth Vigée -Lebrun in 1784 suffered a miscarriage. In the summer of 1785 she exhibited a series of paintings in the Royal Academy, which were largely positive. Also subsequent exhibitions were enthusiastically received. 1788 she organized the souper grec, one of the social events during the reign of Louis XVI.

With time, however, it was attacked more often. In the press she was accused of a relationship with the then finance minister Calonne. 1789 ruined the publication of a fictitious letter between her and the Minister their reputation. Élisabeth Vigée -Lebrun sought refuge with the family of the architect Brongniart.

In exile

After the storming of Versailles during the French Revolution Vigée -Lebrun fled on the night of October 6, 1789, accompanied by her daughter and her governess, to Italy. It was her intention to return after the restoration of law and order to France. On the way they stopped at Lyon, Turin, Parma (where she was inducted into the Academy on November 3 ) and Florence before they arrived in late November in Rome. There Vigée- Lebrun continue moving in aristocratic circles. Her works aroused admiration, so she was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca in early April 1790. The following year she made ​​a total of three trips to Naples.

On April 14, 1792, she left Rome for Paris, where she made in Spoleto, Foligno, Florence, Siena, Parma, Mantua, Venice, Verona and Turin Station. She noted that her name had been put on the list of emigrants and she had thus lost all French citizens' rights. Your entire estate was provided for the seizure. The request of her husband, she should be removed from the list was unsuccessful. As they realized that the situation was too uncertain for them as royalist, she decided to stay in Italy. In Milan, advised her of the Austrian Ambassador to settle in Vienna as a portraitist. There they rented a house in the suburbs.

Meanwhile Lebrun published in defense of his wife's polemic " Précis historique de la vie de la Citoyenne Le Brun ". However, he was ignored and arrested a short time in November. A month later, Elizabeth's brother Etienne was arrested; he has for half a year in prison. Jean -Baptiste- Pierre Lebrun finally filed for divorce in order to protect his property.

On April 19, 1795 Élisabeth Vigée traveled to St. Petersburg, where they arrived in late June and rented an apartment near the Winter Palace. There, too, proved their experience with aristocratic clients as useful. It was funded by the royal family, so that they could accumulate a considerable fortune during their six -year stay. She painted numerous portraits of the members of the family of Catherine II and was inducted into the Academy of Fine Arts. During a meeting of the Board on July 26, 1799 by 255 artists, writers and scientists signed petition in favor of Élisabeth Vigée was submitted. The following year, her mother died. Less than a month later, on June 5, 1800 Vigées name was finally removed from the list of emigrants. So her was the way for a return to France again open. In the same year married Julie Lebrun, against the will of her mother, the director of the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Gaetan Bernard Nigris. After a short stay in Moscow Vigée drove back to Paris. On the way back she held for six months in Berlin, where she came into contact with the Hohenzollern family.

After the return

After a total of 12 years of exile Élisabeth Vigée came on 18 January 1802 in Paris and moved back to the Hôtel Lebrun. Later they rented a country house in Meudon, where she completed some pictures begun in Russia and Germany. She was known and loved now throughout Europe as a portrait painter, she attended after the Peace of Amiens London and made portraits of many British people such as Lord Byron on. In July 1805 Vigée swept over Holland and Belgium to Paris.

In 1807, she received the first and only order of the imperial court for a Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister Caroline. A year later, she traveled twice to Switzerland, where she was named an honorary member of the Société pour l' advancement des Beaux -Arts. In December 1809, she bought a large country house in Louveciennes and lived alternately there and in Paris until her country was in 1814 occupied by the Prussian Army during the war of liberation. On August 7, 1813 her husband died. On December 8, 1819 Julie Nigris died a year later her brother Etienne Vigée. Etienne's daughter Caroline has thus become the sole heir of Vigée. On June 30, 1827 Élisabeth Vigée was appointed a member of the Académie de Vaucluse.

In 1835 she published with the help of her nieces Caroline Rivière and Eugénie Le Franc the first volume of her memoirs, which provide an interesting insight into the training of artists at the end of the monopoly of the royal academies. 1837 was followed by the second and the third volume of their souvenirs. Élisabeth Vigée 1841 suffered a stroke, which affected one permanent paralysis after themselves. They probably died of arteriosclerosis on 30 March 1842 in her apartment at the Hôtel Le Coq, Rue Saint- Lazare at the age of 86 years. She is buried in the cemetery of Louveciennes near her old house.

Work

Élisabeth Vigée -Lebrun of about 660 portraits and 200 landscapes are obtained which are attributable to the classicism. In addition to private collections hosting several major European and American museums ( in Germany, among others, Schloss Charlottenburg ) their works.

Charles Alexandre de Calonne, 1784

Prince Henryk Lubomirski as the Genius of Fame, 1789

Portrait of opera singer Giuseppina Grassini, 1804