Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun

Anonymous sale, Baron Ribeyre & Associés, Paris, 22 October 2003, lot 5;

Anonymous sale, Eve, Paris, 3 June 2004, lot 36.

Probably E. Vigée Le Brun, Souvenirs, Paris 1835-37, vol. I, p. 320.

Daughter of the painter and pastellist Louis Vigée, Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun began her training early: in her invaluable Souvenirs, the list of her works begins in 1768, when she was thirteen years old. Already working mostly on portraits – the genre that would make her name a few years later – Vigée-Le Brun also wrote that she made copies after the great masters. Despite this classical training and her promising debut, Vigée-Le Brun was aware that the doors of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture were closed to her: she presented her works at the Académie de Saint-Luc and became a member in 1774.

That same year, she mentions in her Souvenirs a portrait of the Comte de Brie, which seems likely to correspond with the present work.

Another echo of this portrait appears in historical archives, in the context of a complaint made by Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Le Brun, Elisabeth Vigée’s future husband: the Comte de Brie is accused of ‘having himself painted by her only so that he could spend time with her and charm her, with the aim of seducing her’ (Archives Nationales, Commissaire Girard: Y 3530, published in N.A.A.F., Recueil de documents inédits publiés par la S.H.A.F., 1872, pp. 342–343; our translation).

Despite these circumstances, Vigée Le Brun’s portrait highlights the intellectual qualities of her model and his social rank. With a broad brushstroke, she distributes touches of light that enhance the perfectly balanced composition, paying a fine tribute to the sitter’s personality. It was these qualities that resulted in her being appointed, four years later, as official painter to Queen Marie-Antoinette.