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| Self-Portrait | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun |
| Year | 1790 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 100 cm × 81 cm (39 in × 32 in) |
| Location | |
Self-Portrait Painting Marie Antoinette is a late eighteenth-century oil on canvas painting by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, from 1790. She was known for her role as official portraitist to Queen Marie Antoinette, the Austrian born queen consort who commissioned portraits that sought to project a warmer and more relatable image in response to public scrutiny. Vigée Le Brun’s portraiture style, marked by a combination of elegance and naturalism, played a significant role in this image reform campaign. Vigée Le Brun produced this work during a period of changing aesthetic tastes at the French court, increasing royal patronage of the arts, and mounting political tensions preceding the French Revolution.
The painting shows Le Brun in a black silk robe with a red sash, pausing mid-brushstroke before an outlined image, blending Rococo elegance with Neoclassical clarity. It is held in the collection of the Uffizi, in Florence. Vigée Le Brun painted the work in Rome after fleeing France to escape the French Revolution in 1789. She conceived the work as a demonstration of her support for the French Queen. She intended to give the work to the Grand Duke of Tuscany for the gallery that he maintained of artists' self-portraits.[1]
Provenance
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After fleeing Paris, Vigée Le Brun arrived in Italy in November 1789. She visited the Galleria degli Uffizi and was captivated by the collection of self-portraits set up by Prince Leopoldo de’ Medici.[2] In particular, she was inspired by a self-portrait by Angelica Kauffman, whose talent she greatly admired. Vigée Le Brun also related to Kauffman as they were both successful young prodigies and married libertines who financially ruined them.[1]
The Uffizi authorities invited Vigée Le Brun to add her own self-portrait to the collection. The honor and the sense of inferiority she experienced as a result of this invite is evident through her admission of her "limited erudition" in comparison to the current incumbents of the portrait collection. [1] She began her work in December 1789 in an apartment at the Palazzo Mancini in Rome, which was the headquarters of the Académie de France. She said, “Immediately after my arrival in Rome, I did my portrait for the Florence gallery. I painted myself with a palette in hand, in front of a canvas on which I am drawing the queen in white chalk.”[3] The work took two and a half months to complete. [2]
In April 1790, Vigée Le Brun went to Naples most likely bringing her self-portrait with her. In 1791, Lord Bristol asked her to create a replica of the self-portrait but depicting Julie, Vigée Le Brun’s daughter, instead of Marie Antoinette. [2]
After arriving back in Rome, she sent her self-portrait to the Uffizi, in Florence.[2] The painting was greeted with enthusiasm, and Vigée Le Brun received acclaim from the Academy of San Luca in Rome.[4] In April, 1792, Vigée Le Brun decided to visit her work in the Uffizi but was disappointed by how high the painting was hanging and how close it was to the surrounding works. [2]
Description
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Vigée Le Brun presents herself with the same warm, engaging smile that distinguished her earlier self-portraits. She looks at the viewer, is dressed in an elegant black silk robe, which reflects her elevated status, which is accentuated by a vivid red sash at her waist. Atop her brown curls sits a white turban-like cloth, evoking the headdresses frequently seen in Rembrandt’s self-portraits. [4]
The simple black dress contrasts her lace collar to emphasize the graceful curve of her neck. [4] She pictures herself in front of her easel holding a canvas with a white chalk outline of Marie Antoinette, for whom she was formerly the official portraitist. In her left hand, she clutches a bundle of brushes and a palette, while her right hand is depicted in the moment before she touches her brush to the canvas.[2]
Style
editVigée Le Brun’s style was inspired by Italian, specifically Bolognese, art from the early 18th century[2]. She operated in the transitional time between the Rococo and Neoclassical periods, and her art incorporates elements from both styles[3]. This painting exemplifies the intimacy and ornamentation of the Rococo through Vigée Le Brun’s lace ruff, soft facial features, and delicate curls of hair. She incorporates a Neoclassical color scheme by using a muted palette with pops of bright colors in the headdress, lace frill, and vibrant red sash.
This painting was completed with oil paints on canvas. A badger brush was used to create a smooth gradation between light and shadow. Vigée Le Brun uses heavier brushstrokes in the lace and linen details, depositing more material on the canvas to create more dimension. A limited palette of colors was used, highlighting the more saturated areas of the canvas.
Interpretation
editWhile the Self-Portrait Painting Marie Antoinette was commissioned after the turmoil of Vigée Le Brun‘s flight from her homeland, France, the faint smile on her lips reveals only serenity and grace.[1] She writes her tumultuous emotional state upon arriving in Rome in her memoires saying, "I could now paint no longer; my broken spirit, bruised with so many horrors, shut itself entirely to my art."[3] The composure she chooses to portray suggests neither fear nor despair but rather a quiet defiance and self-assurance. Critics have noted that Vigée Le Brun's self-portraits often display a degree of self-importance, lacking the raw introspection found in Rembrandt’s work.[1]
The faint chalk outlines of Marie Antoinette on the canvas within the painting are a symbolic reminder of Vigée Le Brun's position as the queen's official portraitist. It's presence affirms her continuing loyalty to her royal patroness, Marie Antoinette, in the face of the political turmoil of the French Revolution.[1] By depicting herself in the act of painting the queen, she is perpetuating her royal affiliation but declaring her intention to conquer this next chapter of her career without the French royal court.[2]
References
edit- 1 2 3 4 5 6 May, Gita (2005). Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: The Odyssey of an Artist in an Age of Revolution. Yale University Press. pp. 77–87. ISBN 978-0-300-13000-3.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Baillio, Joseph; Baetjer, Katharine; Lang, Paul (2016). Vigée Le Brun. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 141–143. ISBN 978-1-58839-581-8.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - 1 2 3 Lebrun, Marie Louise Élizabeth Vigée (1903). Strachey, Lionel (ed.). Memoires of Madame Vigée Lebrun. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. OCLC 312916606.
- 1 2 3 "Self-portrait, Elisabet Vigée Le Brun". Uffizi Galleries. Retrieved 2024-12-17.