Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun

Born Apr. 16, 1755, in Paris; died there Mar. 30, 1842. French artist.

Vigée-Lebrun was a portrait painter. She studied first with her father, the portrait painter L. Vigée, and then with G. Briard and G. F. Doyen. In 1783 she became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. She worked in France (before 1789 and again after 1809) as well as in Italy, Germany, Russia (1795-1801), Great Britain, and Sweden. Vigée-Lebrun’s works, mainly portraits of women, are marked by idealization and overly sweet sentimentality, as exemplified in her self-portraits and her portraits of Marie Antoinette and Madame de Staël, among others. In Russia, Vigée-Lebrun painted portraits of the aristocracy and members of the tsar’s family.