Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun

Marie-Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun. French painter (1755-1842).

Vigee-Lebrun shared with [Angelica Kauffman]? the reputation of being the most famous female artists of the 18th century. While Kauffman was best known for her paintings of mythology, Vigee-Lebrun was primarily a portraitist.

Vigee-Lebrun enjoyed considerable patronage from Marie-Antoinette?, who helped her become a member of the Academy in 1783. Her portraits of Marie Antoinette are extremely sympathetic. After the arrest of the royal family during the French Revolution Vigee-Lebrun fled France and lived for some years in Italy, Austria, and Russia, where her experience in dealing with an aristocratic clientele was still useful. She published her memoirs in 1835 and 1837, which provide an interesting view of the training of artists at the end of the period dominated by royal academies.