Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun (1755‒1842)

Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun (1755‒1842) was the most famous and productive French portrait painter around 1800. This self-portrait shows her in the year of her return to France from exile, which she spent in Italy, Austria, and Russia. In this period, too, she painted numerous portraits of members of European ruling houses and the higher nobility.

Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun (1755‒1842), self-portrait, 1800, oil on canvas, 78,5 x 68 cm; courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/38134/?lng=de.