Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

AKA:

Madame Le Brun

Birth Name:

Élisabeth Louise Vigée

Birth Date:

April 16, 1755

Birth Place:

Paris, France

Death Date:

March 30, 1842

Place of Death:

29 Rue Saint-Lazare, Paris, France

Age:

Cause of Death:

Ill health due to stroke

Cemetery Name:

Cimetière de Louveciennes

Claim to Fame:

Artists

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was one of the great portrait artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, easily the equal of Quentin de La Tour or Jean Baptiste Greuze. Born into relatively modest circumstances, she firmly established herself in society’s upper crust. After earning the favours of the king and his family, she became the official artist of Queen Marie Antoinette. One of the most successful women artists (unusually so for her time), particularly noted for her portraits of women, her father and first teacher, Louis Vigée, was a noted portraitist who worked chiefly in pastels. Her great opportunity came in 1779 when she was summoned to Versailles to paint a portrait of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The two women became friends, and in subsequent years Vigée-Lebrun painted more than 20 portraits of Marie-Antoinette in a great variety of poses and costumes. She also painted a great number of self-portraits, in the style of various artists whose work she admired. During her 60+ years as an artist, Le Brun created 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to many works in private collections, her paintings are owned by major museums such as the Louvre in Paris, Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and many other collections in Europe and the United States. Since 1999 the record price for an original Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun at auction is $7,185,900 USD for Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan (full-length holding his sword in a landscape).

Fun Fact

In her later years, Madame Le Brun spent most of her time in Louveciennes, France typically eight months of the year. She formed new friendships with people including the writer and man of letters M. de Briffaut, the playwright M. Despré, the writer M. Louis Aimé-Martin, the composer M. Désaugiers, the painter and antiquarian Comte de Forbin, and the famous painter Antoine-Jean Gros. She hosted these people and socialized with them regularly in her countryside home or in Paris, as well as her old friend the Princess Kourakin.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Cimetière de Louveciennes

All. des Arches

Louveciennes, , 78430

France

Europe

Map:

Map of Cimetière de Louveciennes in Louveciennes, France courtesy of Google maps

Grave Location:

Division 3

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery under the historic arches, walk straight ahead to the last section on your left. Take the last path on the left before the wall and walk about 50 to the final resting place of artist Madame Le Brun.