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Self-Portrait with Her Daughter Julie
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun · Rococo & Neoclassicism
- Artist
- Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842)
- Date
- 1789
- Dimensions
- 130 x 94 cm
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Location
- Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
In this self-portrait, painted on the eve of the French Revolution, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun shows herself tenderly embracing her young daughter Julie. Both wear simple, loose white dresses in the new fashion for natural elegance.
A closer look
The two faces are pressed close together, and the composition forms a gentle pyramid inspired by Raphael’s Madonnas. Vigée Le Brun presents an image of maternal love that was very much in tune with the ideas of the Enlightenment, which praised mothers who raised their children themselves. Her calm, smiling face also shows the confident artist who had become Marie-Antoinette’s favourite portraitist. A few months later, the Revolution forced her to flee France with Julie.
