She was to employ - if not positively exploit - her own femininity, throwing it over her female sitters with almost exaggerated effect. It must be admitted that in the very real success Madame Vigée Le Brun enjoyed there is significance. Consider this passage by art historian Michael Levey: Despised as a royalist during the Revolution and forgotten about during the advent of Romanticism, Le Brun continued to be assailed during the 20th century. In his introductory essay, “The Artistic and Social Odyssey of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun,” Baillio addresses the critical neglect of the artist’s work. The curators of all three institutions - Xavier Salmon, Katharine Baetjer, and Paul Lang - have contributed to the Met’s excellent accompanying catalogue, as has Le Brun expert Joseph Baillio, whose scholarship has been integral to the project.
The exhibition, which will travel to the National Gallery of Canada in June (where it will revert to its original title), was first held at the Grand Palais in Paris. The show marks the first US exhibition dedicated to Le Brun’s work since 1982. The Met’s iteration of the show, which is organized by European paintings curator Katharine Baetjer, was renamed Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France - a misleading title given that Le Brun fled the country in 1789 and travelled across Europe for a dozen years. It was only late last year that the first retrospective of her work, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun: 1755–1842, was held in her native France. The daughter of a pastelist and a hairdresser, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) painted and befriended Marie Antoinette, escaped the horrors of the French Revolution, and forged a career as one of the 18th-century’s greatest portraitists. Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, “Self-Portrait” (1790), oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 31 7/8 inches, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Corridoio Vasariano, Florence (all images courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art)