Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: The Odyssey of an Artist in an Age of Revolution - Hardcover

May, Gita

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300108729 ISBN 13: 9780300108729

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2005

Synopsis

The story of Marie Antoinette’s portraitist, a remarkable woman living in dangerous times

The foremost woman artist of her age, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755—1842) exerted her considerable charm to become the friend, and then official portraitist, of Marie Antoinette. Though profitable, this role made Vigée Le Brun a public and controversial figure, and in 1789 it precipitated her exile. In a Europe torn by strife and revolution, she nevertheless managed to thrive as an independent, self-supporting artist, doggedly setting up studios in Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and London. Long overlooked or dismissed, Vigée Le Brun’s portraits now hang in the Louvre, in a room of their own, as well as in all leading art museums of the world.

This gripping biography tells the story of a singularly gifted and high-spirited woman during the revolutionary era and explores the development and significance of her art. The book also recounts the public and private lives of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, connecting  her with such personalities of her age as Catherine the Great, Napoleon, and Benjamin Franklin, and setting her experiences in the context of contemporary European politics and culture. A generous selection of illustrations, including sixteen of Vigée Le Brun’s portraits presented in full color, completes this exceptional volume.

About this title

About the Author:

Gita May is professor of French literature, Columbia University. She has taught and published extensively on late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French literature, art, and culture.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* In a biography as entrancing as its impressive subject, May chronicles the life story of a French woman artist who overcame the entrenched misogyny and bloody upheavals of her time to become the portraitist of choice for Europe's most powerful rulers. Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (1755-1842) was blessed not only with talent but also with beauty, poise, and pragmatism. Already earning a good living with her luminous portraits--she was particularly adept at capturing the radiance of women and girls--Vigee Le Brun was reluctant to marry, and sure enough, her husband squandered her fortune. Vigee Le Brun was forced to flee Paris after the French Revolution, but she turned exile into a grand tour of Italy, Germany, Austria, Russia, and England as she was warmly welcomed everywhere she went and given plum commissions. Fearless, inquisitive, and clear-eyed, Vigee Le Brun climbed Mount Vesuvius, painted Catherine the Great, and hid her diamonds in her stockings, eventually returning to France in triumph. Like her irresistible subject, May is a superb portraitist, rendering with a rich palette and a light touch the exhilarating life of a remarkable artist and human being. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0300108729
• ISBN 13: 9780300108729
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256