Elisabeth Vigee's Life And Accomplishments

In Paris France on April 16, 1755 one of the most sought after female painters was born to Louis and Jeannne Vigee (2014). Biography states this in their article “Elisabeth Vigee Le brun” “Her father was successful artist who encouraged her interest in art”. In her life time she was widely known and was credited for painting for very important people. She was also known for her fashionable portraits of the eighteenth century (2014).
Elisabeth Vigee Le burn achieved early success as a young artist, her ability to put her subjects in flattering elegant styles made her one of the most popular portraitists in France. Some of her more famous clients included aristocracy, royalty and Marie Antoinette, whose portrait she painted over thirty times
Her work also strongly convey the message that the path of a professional female artist was a unique and at times lonely journey. Elisabeth was a very playful artist and at times she loved to role-play.” In 1778 she famously organized souper grec, arranging the hair and costumes of her dinner guests, and providing Greek-style décor and food” (pg.151). While in Russia she introduced tableaux vivants, an entertainment which quickly became all the rage in the saloons of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In most of her portraits she loved to use costumes, she would dress her subjects in loosely fitting clothes, shawls and garlands of flowers. This would help her subjects to stay modest, but it also gave them room to be imaginative and to have the opportunity to be able to get out of their everyday lives
Another famous painting that she painted was called Marie Antoinette, it was over nine feet high and six feet wide, the queen is extravagantly depicted in a dress of blue velvet with a white taffeta skirt and a matching blue toque, finished with a white feather and plumes (pg.336). Another famous royal painting is the double portrait of Madame Roayle and Dauphine Louis Joseph from Versailles, two of the oldest children of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI are painted playing with a nest of birds, whose open red beaks portray their hunger. From her Italian years Vigee Le burn painted a portrait named Emma Hart, the Future Lady Hamilton, as Ariadne, it portrays Ariadne reclining against a grassy knoll before an open sea, draped below her lavish body is a leopard’s skin complete with the head and paws (pg.337). In her travels Vigee Le burn was supported by the royalty, especially Naples and Vienna, which where ruled by relatives of Marie Antoinette, but also in St. Petersburg and Potsdam. Vigee Le burn painted five paintings for the Neapolitan monarchs, the most famous one was called Francesco di Borbone, and it is of the thirteen year old prince. In the painting the prince