DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0044
10
VIGEE-LEBRUN
As befitted a priestess in the temple of the reigning divinity, she was a.
pretty woman. A careful comparison among her various portraits of
herself will convince any one, not actually in love with her, that she was
not quite (if very nearly) as pretty as in the charming “ straw hat ” picture-
in Trafalgar Square, or the “ Grecian ” picture at the Louvre.
Like Rembrandt, she was much given to painting her own portrait,
and the subject was certainly attractive. There is more of the Narcissus
feeling about her self-representations than about those of the Dutch Master,
who used his own reflection as a model as much from want of ready money,
or temporary dearth of paying sitters, as for any other reason.
We have no early portraits of her by other artists in which we can
place much confidence. If we want to see how her appearance impressed
other painters, we may study the portrait by David in the Museum at
Rouen, and the miniature by Frangois Dumont in the Wallace Collection.
The first of these was almost certainly painted in the Empire period,
though possibly from sketches made before the Revolution. It is in the
highest degree improbable that she would, after her return to France^
have given sittings to so bitter a Republican as David, and in the slightly
sardonic mouth which she has in his picture there may be another illus-
tration of that enmity towards his old friend which she believed him to
have shown very cruelly on several occasions. At any rate David was not
at all likely to flatter her. The fact that, in the Rouen portrait, in spite
of some bad drawing about the neck and head, she is shown in middle
age as the possessor of notable personal attractions, not only of face, but
of hair, figure, arms, and hands, justifies a considerable measure of con-
fidence in her representations of herself. A miniature by Ritt, painted
about 1796, is even more favourable.
For written testimony to the veracity of one, at least, of her best-
known self-portraits we may turn to the Princess Natalie Kourakin, who
(when she visited Florence in 1818, just after seeing a great deal of her
old friend Madame Lebrun in Paris) wrote of the Uffizi picture : “ How
pretty she must have been, and indeed, how much she still resembles that
portrait.”
Elisabeth Vigee’s successful portraits of friends and acquaintances,,
bourgeois or artistic, had come, in a short time, to the notice of “ people
of quality,” and when she had painted the young Marquis de Choiseul, the-
Comte and Comtesse de la Blache, Madame d’Aguesseau (“ with her dog ”),
and other persons of social influence, who were pleased with her renderings
VIGEE-LEBRUN
As befitted a priestess in the temple of the reigning divinity, she was a.
pretty woman. A careful comparison among her various portraits of
herself will convince any one, not actually in love with her, that she was
not quite (if very nearly) as pretty as in the charming “ straw hat ” picture-
in Trafalgar Square, or the “ Grecian ” picture at the Louvre.
Like Rembrandt, she was much given to painting her own portrait,
and the subject was certainly attractive. There is more of the Narcissus
feeling about her self-representations than about those of the Dutch Master,
who used his own reflection as a model as much from want of ready money,
or temporary dearth of paying sitters, as for any other reason.
We have no early portraits of her by other artists in which we can
place much confidence. If we want to see how her appearance impressed
other painters, we may study the portrait by David in the Museum at
Rouen, and the miniature by Frangois Dumont in the Wallace Collection.
The first of these was almost certainly painted in the Empire period,
though possibly from sketches made before the Revolution. It is in the
highest degree improbable that she would, after her return to France^
have given sittings to so bitter a Republican as David, and in the slightly
sardonic mouth which she has in his picture there may be another illus-
tration of that enmity towards his old friend which she believed him to
have shown very cruelly on several occasions. At any rate David was not
at all likely to flatter her. The fact that, in the Rouen portrait, in spite
of some bad drawing about the neck and head, she is shown in middle
age as the possessor of notable personal attractions, not only of face, but
of hair, figure, arms, and hands, justifies a considerable measure of con-
fidence in her representations of herself. A miniature by Ritt, painted
about 1796, is even more favourable.
For written testimony to the veracity of one, at least, of her best-
known self-portraits we may turn to the Princess Natalie Kourakin, who
(when she visited Florence in 1818, just after seeing a great deal of her
old friend Madame Lebrun in Paris) wrote of the Uffizi picture : “ How
pretty she must have been, and indeed, how much she still resembles that
portrait.”
Elisabeth Vigee’s successful portraits of friends and acquaintances,,
bourgeois or artistic, had come, in a short time, to the notice of “ people
of quality,” and when she had painted the young Marquis de Choiseul, the-
Comte and Comtesse de la Blache, Madame d’Aguesseau (“ with her dog ”),
and other persons of social influence, who were pleased with her renderings