I visited the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art today (Hartford, CT; founded 1842) — it has a great collection of paintings from the Hudson River School which I will share in upcoming posts. It also has a lovely painting by Mary Cassatt which I have been wanting to see for a long time – however it was not on view! And neither was the Mary Cassatt painting that I wanted to see at the New Britain MofA yesterday–guess I’ll have to come back!
However, it also has a lovely painting by another one of my favorite artists, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (16 April 1755 – 30 March 1842), a French portrait painter. A master of portraits and textures, she studied with her artist father and was painting portraits and selling them by the time she was 16.
She painted over 30 portraits of Marie Antoinette, and they became good friends, unusual for the time.
This painting is of Gabrielle de Polastron, who married the influential Comte de Polignac in 1767. After the couple became close friends of the royal family, she, as duchesse, was given the prestigious role of governess for the royal children. In 1782, Queen Marie Antoinette commissioned the portrait of her dear friend from Vigée Le Brun, who also painted this replica, “The Duchesse de Polignac Wearing a Straw Hat.” The other version is in the collection of the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, currently on loan to the MET. There are only very subtle differences in the sky and clouds.
On their site, the MET adds, “The queen and her circle had grown weary of the discomforts of the formal attire worn at Versailles. In the early 1780s, in private settings, they therefore abandoned their corsets and hoops for draped, loosely belted muslin chemise dresses, which were relaxed and natural.” Portraits depicting the subject them in these more casual styles were radical at the time.
The queen urged the duchesse to flee France in 1789 to avoid the guillotine, Vigée Le Brun also fled–she and her daughter went to Italy and later, Russia, leaving her husband, who had fewer ties to royalty, in France. She was able to return 12 years later, having done many of her over 660 portraits outside of France.
It’s always an exciting event for me to see a Vigée Le Brun painting that I haven’t seen before…but as the day went on, it got much more exciting! More to come —
