Portrait Of A Young Man, Dated 1800 By Elisabeth Vigée-lebrun (1755-1842)

Portrait Of A Young Man, dated 1800 
ELISABETH VIGÉE-LEBRUN (1755-1842) 

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Large 1800 French portrait of a young man, by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun. Excellent quality and condition oval bust scale profile portrait of a young man dated 1800 the period in which Vigee-Lebrun resided and worked in Saint Petersburg after fleeing the turmoil of the French Revolution. The depiction of the young man is particularly unusual as most of Vigee-Lebrun's commissions were among nobles and members of the aristocracy, none of whom who be have been depicted in the same manner as this work. It is more likely the sitter is a member of her entourage or another artist. Signed & dated bottom right. Presented in its original antique oval gilt frame.
Provenance: Sold Dorotheum, Vienna, 2005, $55,000Authentication by Dr. Stephanie Hauschild
Measurements: 32" x 27" framed approx
BIOGRAPHY
Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s father was the portrait painter Louis Vigée, who taught at the Académie de St-Luc. He died when she was twelve years old, and her teachers were Davesne and Doyen de Briard. It was at the latter’s house that she met Rosalie Boquet, the future Mme Filleul. Her principal advisers were Joseph Vernet and Greuze.She enjoyed immediate success, being accepted as a member of the Académie de St-Luc on 25 October 1774, and less than two years later, aged 20, she married the painter and art dealer Jean-Baptiste Le Brun, by whom she had a daughter. In 1779 at Versailles she painted from life a portrait of Marie-Antoinette in a Satin Gown, a Rose in Her Hand. Another Young Woman with a Rose and a portrait of the Comte de Cossé date from 1781. In the following year she visited the Netherlands, and after her return she was admitted, at the insistence of the queen, whose favourite she had become, as an academician on 30 May 1783 on presentation of an allegory, Peace Restoring Plenty (Louvre). In the same year she sent to the Salon portraits of Marie-Antoinette, Madame [Louis XVI’s sister Élisabeth], Marquise de Guiche as a Gardener, and of herself wearing a straw hat, as well as two paintings of Juno Borrowing the Girdle of Venus and Venus Binding Cupid’s Wings. She concentrated increasingly on portraiture, exhibiting in the 1785 Salon portraits of The Dauphin and Madame Royale (Versailles), Comtesse de Ségur, Baroness de Crussol Holding a Music Book (Toulouse museum), Comtesse de Clermont and Comtesse de Gramont. In the 1787 Salon she showed portraits of Marie Antoinette with the Duke of Normandy on Her Lap, Marquise de Pezay, Baron d’Espagnac, Mlle de la Briche, and of Mme Dugazon in the Role of Nina (Collection of the Countess S. de Pourtalès).In 1789 she produced pictures of Prince Lubomirski, Mahomet Dervish Kan, and Hubert Robert. As the events of the Revolution unwound, however, she felt herself increasingly under threat, and she left for Italy on 5 October 1789. There she visited Turin, Rome, and Naples and painted portraits of Paisiello, Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, and Lady Hamilton as a Sibyl (Naples). She was a guest of Prince Borromeo on Isola Bella, and then she took Count Wilzeck’s advice and moved to Vienna. Here she spent the years 1793 and 1794, when her husband was forced to divorce her. She then visited Prague, Dresden, and Berlin and went on to St Petersburg, where she remained for six years. She did not return to Paris until 18 January 1802, but soon left for London (1803–1805). When she eventually returned to France she bought a country house at Louveciennes, outside Paris. Her late works include an Amphion Playing the Lyre (1817) and a portrait of the Duchesse de Berry(1824). By now she was content to withdraw from the limelight, as her talent had declined and her style, like that of the regime it had depicted, was out of fashion. Museum and Gallery Holdings Aachen: Head of a Girl Angers: Innocence Takes Refuge in the Arms of Justice Avignon (Mus. Calvet): Portrait of the Singer Giuseppina Grassini (1804, oil on canvas) Bern: Alpine Celebration Bologna: The Artist’s Daughter Bordeaux: Hebe Caen: Portrait of a Girl Chantilly: Maria Theresa of Austria;Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples;Marie-Louise Joséphine of Etruria Darmstadt: Marie-Antoinette Detroit: Marie-Antoinette Dieppe: N. Jacquemot Florence: Self-Portrait Fort Worth (Kimbell AM): Self-Portrait (c. 1781, oil on canvas) Geneva (MAH): Mme Rilliet-Hubert;Mme de Staël as Corinna Grenoble: Supposed Portrait of La Duthé Hartford (Wadsworth Atheneum): The Duchesse de Polignac Wearing a Straw Hat (1782, oil on canvas) Kansas City (Nelson-Atkins MA): Marie-Gabrielle de Gramont, Duchesse de Caderousse (1784, oil on panel) La Fère: Portrait Le Havre: Pastel London (NG): Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat (after 1782, oil on canvas);Mademoiselle Brongniart(1788, oil/wood) Madrid: Portrait of Queen Maria Carolina;Portrait of a Princess of Naples Minneapolis (IA): Portrait of Countess Maria Theresia Bucquoi, née Parr (1793, oil on canvas) Montpellier: Elizabeth Alexievna, Wife of Tsar Alexander I Moscow (Pushkin MFA): Women Bathing;Naiads;Prince E. N. Yusupov;Princess Tatiana Yusupov;Princess Galitzin;Princess Golenishchev-Kutuzov;The Singer Angelica Catalani Naples: Lady Hamilton as a Sibyl New York (Metropolitan Mus. of Art): Girl with Roses Paris (Louvre): Peace Restoring Plenty;Mme Le Brun and Her Daughter (two versions);Paisiello;Hubert Robert;Joseph Vernet;Mme Molé-Raymond of the Comédie-Française;Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski Paris (Mus. Jacquemart-André): Countess Catherine Skavronsky;Joseph-Hyacinthe de Rigaud;Comte Vaudreuil Parma: Girl with Roses Richmond (Virginia MFA): Comte de Vaudreuil (1784, oil on canvas, portrait) Rouen: Mme Grassini;The Grandparents of A. H. de Butemal (pastel) St Petersburg (Gosudarstvennyj Russkij Muz.): Prince Gagarin;Countess Potocka-Toulouse;Baroness de Crussol St Petersburg (Hermitage): The Genius of Alexander I;Baron Grigory Alexandrovich Stroganov;Self-Portrait St Petersburg (MFA): Julie Lebrun as Flora (1799, oil on canvas) Tucson (MA, University of Arizona): Countess Schönfeld and her Daughter Turin (Pinacoteca): Daughter of the Engraver Porporati Versailles: Marie-Antoinette (two versions);The Dauphin and His Sister;Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchesse d’Orléans (two versions);Cardinal Fleury;La Bruyère;Marie-Antoinette and Her Children;Grétry;Caroline Bonaparte, Queen of Naples Vienna: Prince Lubomirski;Countess Zamoïska Vienna (Czernin’sche Gemäldegal.): Mme Czernin Bibliography

Nolhac, Pierre de: Madame Vigée-Le Brun, peintre de la reine Marie-Antoinette, 1755–1842, Paris, 1908.

Hautecoeur, Louis: Madame Vigée-Lebrun: étude critique in coll. Les Grands Artistes, H. Laurens, Paris, 1914.

Helm, W.H.: Vigée-Lebrun, 1755–1842: Her Life, Works and Friendships, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1915.

La Femme artiste: d’Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun à Rosa Bonheur, exhibition catalogue, Donjon Lacataye, Mont-de-Marsan, 1982.

Vigée-Lebrun, Elisabeth/Evans, Sian (trans.): The memoirs of Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, Camden Press, London, 1989.

Kertanguy, Inès de: Madame Vigée-Lebrun, Perrin, Paris, 1994.

Sheriff, Mary D.: The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.

May, Gita: Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: The Odyssey of an Artist in an Age of Revolution, Yale University Press, New Haven (CT), 2005.