I confess I had not heard of
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun when I went to the first retrospective of her work at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, here in New York City. Born in 1755 she had an exceptional career as a portraitist supported in part by the patronage of Marie Antoinette. Le Brun painted more than thirty portraits of the doomed French Queen. I rather enjoyed the exhibition and marveled at her special skill for painting fabric. It was as if I would have felt velvet beneath my fingers had I reached out and touched a painting! Although more paintings of women than men in the exhibition, I preferred her male sitters. The women more stylized and romantic, the men less so. Exhibition through May 15, 2016.
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Joseph Vernet, 1778, Le Brun's mentor |
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Self Portrait with Cerise Ribbons, 1782 |
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Charles Alexandre de Calonne, 1784, Controller General of Finances |