Countess Anna Ivanova Tolstaya

This 1796 portrait of Countess Anna Ivanova Tolstaya at the National Gallery of Canada was painted during the Russian exile period that proved among the most productive of Vigée Le Brun’s career. The warmth of Russian aristocratic hospitality and the generosity of their commissions made St. Petersburg a particularly rewarding base for the émigré artist. Vigée Le Brun was the most technically accomplished and socially successful woman painter of the eighteenth century, achieving membership of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1783 and a clientele that extended from the French royal family to the courts of Russia, Austria, and Italy during her decade of exile following the Revolution. Her portrait manner combined the neoclassical formal values of her training with a quality of feminine intimacy and emotional warmth that made her portraits of women and children especially celebrated. Her ability to make her sitters appear simultaneously dignified and approachable was the technical foundation of her social success.

The portrait demonstrates Vigée Le Brun’s consistent excellence across her Russian oeuvre. Luminous flesh tones, careful attention to costume, and warm, flattering light characterize this accomplished Russian-period work.