Editing Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (section)

=== Early life ===
[[File:Self-portrait at age sixteen by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. pastel.jpg|thumb|256x256px|left|''Self-portrait at age sixteen'', 1771, pastel.]]

Born in Paris on 16 April 1755,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gaze |first1=Delia |title=Concise Dictionary of Women Artists |date=2001 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-57958-335-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4h7A0XIN14C |language=en |page=678}}</ref> Élisabeth Louise Vigée was the daughter of Jeanne ({{née|Maisin}}; 1728–1800), a hairdresser from a peasant background,<ref name="ExhCat" /> and [[Louis Vigée]] (1715–1767), a portraitist, pastellist and member of the [[Académie de Saint-Luc]], who mostly specialized in painting with oils. Élisabeth exhibited artistic inclinations from her childhood, making a sketch of a bearded man at the age of seven or eight; when he first saw her sketches her father was jubilant and exclaimed that "You will be a painter my child, if there ever was one", and started to give her lessons in art. In 1760, at the age of five, she had entered a convent, where she remained until 1766.<ref name=ExhCat/> She then worked as an assistant to her father's friend, the painter and poet Pierre Davesne, with whom she learned more about painting. Her father died when she was 12 years old, from infections after several surgical operations. In 1768, her mother married a wealthy but mean jeweller, Jacques-François Le Sèvre, and shortly after, the family moved to the [[Rue Saint-Honoré]], close to the [[Palais Royal]].<ref name=Goodden>{{Cite book |title=The Sweetness of Life: A Biography of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun |last=Goodden |first=Angelica |author-link=Angelica Goodden |publisher=André Deutsch Limited |location=London |date=1997}}</ref>

In her [[memoir]], Vigée Le Brun directly stated her feelings about her stepfather: "I hated this man; even more so since he made use of my father's personal possessions. He wore his clothes, just as they were, without altering them to fit his figure."<ref name=Memoirs/> During this period, Élisabeth benefited from the advice of [[Gabriel François Doyen]], [[Jean-Baptiste Greuze]], and [[Joseph Vernet]], whose influence is evident in her portrait of her younger brother, playwright and poet [[Étienne Vigée]].<ref name=Goodden/>

After her father's death, her mother sought to raise her spirits by taking her to the [[Luxembourg Palace|Palais de Luxembourg]]'s art gallery; seeing the works of [[Peter Paul Rubens]] and other old masters left a great impression on her. She also visited numerous private galleries, including those of Rendon de Boisset, the Duc de Praslin [[:fr:Antoine-César de Choiseul-Praslin|[fr]]], and the [[François Gaston de Lévis|Marquis de Levis]]; the artist took notes and copied the works of [[old master]]s such as [[Anthony van Dyck|Van Dyke]], [[Peter Paul Rubens|Rubens]] and [[Rembrandt]] to improve her art. At an early age, she reversed the order of her given Christian names, and was known among her inner circle as 'Louise'. For most of her life, she signed her paintings, documents and letters as "Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun", although she acknowledged later in life that the correct baptismal order would be Élisabeth Louise.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

By the time she was in her early teens, Élisabeth was painting portraits professionally.<ref name=OxfordArt>{{Cite web |last1=Nicholson |first1=Kathleen |title=Vigée Le Brun, Elisabeth-Louise |url=http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T089458 |website=Grove Art Online - Oxford Art Online |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=21 November 2014}}</ref> She greatly disliked the contemporary [[Rococo|High Rococo]] fashion, and often solicited her sitters to allow her to alter their apparel. Inspired by [[Raphael]] and [[Domenichino]], she often draped her subjects in shawls and long scarves; these styles would later become ubiquitous in her portraiture. After her studio was seized for her practicing without a license, she applied to the [[Académie de Saint-Luc]], which unwittingly exhibited her works in its Salon. In 1774, she was made a member of the Académie.<ref name=OxfordArt/> Her studio's reputation saw a meteoric rise, and her renown spread outside France. By 1774, she had painted portraits which included those of [[Grigory Orlov|the Comte Orloff]], Comte Pierre Chouvaloff [[:ru:Шувалов,_Пётр_Иванович|[ru]]] (one of Empress [[Elizabeth of Russia|Elizabeth's]] favorites), the Comtesse de Brionne [[:fr:Louise-Julie-Constance de Brionne|[fr]]], the [[Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans|Duchess of Orléans]] (future mother of King [[Louis Philippe I|Louis Philippe]]), the Marquis de Choiseul, and the [[Henri François d'Aguesseau|Chancellor de Aguesseau]], among many others. In 1776, she received her first royal commission, to paint the portrait of the [[Louis XVIII|Comte de Provence]] (the future King Louis XVIII).

After her stepfather retired from his business, he moved his family to the Hôtel de Lubert in Paris where she met [[Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun]], a painter, art dealer and relation of the painter [[Charles Le Brun]], on the Rue de Cléry where they lodged. Élisabeth visited M. Le Brun's apartments frequently to view his private collection of paintings, which included examples from many different schools. He agreed to her request to borrow some of the paintings in order to copy them and improve her skills, which she saw as one of the greatest boons of artistic instruction she had received. After residing in the Hôtel de Lubert for six months, M. Le Brun asked for the artist's hand in marriage. Élisabeth was in a dilemma as to whether to agree or refuse the offer; she had a steady source of income from her rising career as an artist and her future was secure; as such, she wrote, she had never contemplated marriage. On her mother's urging and goaded by her desire to be separated from her stepfather's worsening temperament, Élisabeth agreed, though her doubts were such that she was still hesitant on her wedding day on 11 January 1776; she was twenty years old. The wedding took place in great privacy in the [[Saint-Eustache, Paris|Saint-Eustache church]], with only two [[Banns of marriage|banns]] being read, and was kept secret for some time at the request of her husband, who was officially engaged to another woman at the time in an attempt to secure a lucrative art deal with a Dutch art dealer. Élisabeth acceded to his request as she was reluctant to give up her now famous maiden name. In 1778, she and her husband contracted to purchase the Hôtel de Lubert. In this same year, she became the official painter to the Queen.

During the two weeks after the wedding had taken place in secret, the artist was visited by a stream of people giving her ominous news regarding her husband, these people believing that she had still not agreed to his proposal. These visitors started with the court jeweller, followed by the Duchesse de Arenberg and [[Adelaide Filleul, Marquise de Souza-Botelho|Mme de Souza]], the Portuguese ambassadress, who passed stories of M. Le Brun's habits as a spendthrift and womanizer. Élisabeth would later regret this match as she found these rumors to be true, though she wrote that in spite of his faults he was still an agreeable and obliging man with a sweet nature. However, she frequently condemned his gambling and adulterous habits in her memoirs, as these left her in a financially critical position at the time of her flight from France. Her relationship with him deteriorated later so much that she demanded the refund of her dowry from M. Le Brun in 1802. Vigée Le Brun began exhibiting her work at their home, and the salons she held there supplied her with many new and important contacts.<ref name=OxfordArt/>

Her husband's great-great-uncle was [[Charles Le Brun]], the first director of the [[French Academy]] under [[Louis XIV]]. Her husband appropriated most of her income and pressed her to also take on the role of a private tutor to increase his income from her. The artist found tutoring to be frustrating due to her inability to assert authority over her pupils, most of whom were older than her, and found the distraction from her work irritating; she renounced tutoring soon after she had begun.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

==== Daughter Julie ====
[[File:Madame Vigee-Lebrun and her daughter, Jeanne Lucia (Julie).jpg|thumb|252x252px|''Self-portrait with her Daughter Julie'', 1786, [[Louvre Museum]]]]

After two years of marriage, Vigée Le Brun became pregnant, and on 12 February 1780, she gave birth to a daughter, [[Julie Le Brun|Jeanne Lucie Louise]], whom she called Julie and nicknamed "Brunette".<ref name=Memoirs/> In 1784, she gave birth to a second child who died in infancy.<ref name="ExhCat" />{{Efn|Le Brun does not mention this child anywhere in her memoirs.}}

In 1781, she and her husband toured [[Flanders]], [[Brussels]] and the [[Netherlands]], where seeing the works of the Flemish masters inspired her to try new techniques. Her ''[[Self-portrait in a Straw Hat]]'' (1782) was a "free imitation" of Rubens's ''[[Portrait of Susanna Lunden|Le Chapeau de Paille]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The National Gallery Companion Guide |edition=rev. |last=Langmuir |first=Erika |publisher=National Gallery Publications Ltd |location=London |date=1997 |pages=328–329}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun-self-portrait-in-a-straw-hat |title=Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat |website=National Gallery |access-date=10 March 2018}}</ref> Dutch and Flemish influences have also been noted in ''The Comte d'Espagnac'' (1786) and ''Madame Perregaux'' (1789).<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Wallace Collection's Pictures: A Complete Catalogue |author1-last=Duffy |author1-first=Stephen |author2-last=Hedley |author2-first=Jo |publisher=Unicorn Press and Lindsay Fine Art Ltd |location=London |date=2004 |pages=460–462}}</ref>

In yet another of the series of scandals that marked her early career, her 1785 portrait of [[Louis XVI]]'s [[Controller-General of Finances|minister of finance]], [[Charles Alexandre de Calonne]], was the target of a public scandal after it was exhibited in the [[Salon (Paris)|Salon of 1785]]. Rumors circulated that the minister had paid the artist a very large sum of money, while other rumors circulated that she had had an affair with de Calonne. The famous [[Paris Opera]] soprano [[Sophie Arnould]] commented on the portrait "Madame Le Brun had cut off his legs so he could not escape". More rumors and scandals followed soon after as, to the painter's dismay, M. Le Brun began building a mansion on the Rue de-Gros-Chenet, with the public claiming that de Calonne was financing the new home - although her husband did not finish constructing the house until 1801, shortly before her return to France after her long exile. She was also rumored to have had another affair, with [[Joseph Hyacinthe François de Paule de Rigaud, Comte de Vaudreuil]], who was one of her most devoted patrons. Their correspondence published later strongly affirmed the status of this affair. These rumors spiraled into an extensive defamation campaign targeting the painter throughout 1785.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

In 1787, she caused a minor public scandal when her ''Self-portrait with her Daughter Julie'' was exhibited at that year's Salon showing her [[smile#Cultural differences|smiling]] and open-mouthed, which was in direct contravention of traditional painting conventions going back to antiquity. The court gossip-sheet ''[[Mémoires secrets]]'' commented: "An affectation which artists, art-lovers and persons of taste have been united in condemning, and which finds no precedent among the Ancients, is that in smiling, [Madame Vigée LeBrun] shows her teeth."<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Great Nation: France from Louis XIV to Napoleon |last=Jones |first=Colin |publisher=Penguin Books |location=London |date=2003 |page=364 |isbn=9780140130935}}</ref> In light of this and her other ''Self-portrait with her Daughter Julie'' (1789), [[Simone de Beauvoir]] dismissed Vigée Le Brun as narcissistic in ''[[The Second Sex]]'' (1949): "Madame Vigée-Lebrun never wearied of putting her smiling maternity on her canvases."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Extracts from The Second Sex |last=Beauvoir |first=Simone de |translator=Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier |publisher=Vintage |date=2009}}</ref>

In 1788, Vigée Le Brun was impressed with the faces of the [[Kingdom of Mysore|Mysorean]] ambassadors of [[Tipu Sultan|Tipu-Sultan]], and solicited their approval to take their portraits. The ambassador responded by saying he would only agree if the request came from the King, which Vigée Le Brun procured, and she proceeded to paint the [[Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan|portrait of Dervish Khan]], followed by a group portrait of the ambassador and his son. After finishing the portraits and leaving them with the ambassadors to dry, Vigée Le Brun sought their return in order to exhibit them in the Salon; one of the ambassadors refused the request, stating that a painting "needs a soul", and hid the paintings behind his bed. Vigée Le Brun managed to secure the portraits through the ambassador's valet, which enraged the ambassador to the point that he wished to kill his valet, but he was dissuaded from doing so as "it was not custom in Paris to kill one's valet". She falsely convinced the ambassador that the King wanted the portraits, and they were exhibited in the Salon of 1789. Unknown to the artist, these ambassadors were later executed upon their return to Mysore for failing in their mission to forge a military alliance with Louis XVI. After her husband's death, the paintings were sold along with the remnants of his estate, and Vigée Le Brun did not know who possessed them at the time she wrote her memoirs.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}