Portrait of Madame Du Barry

Madame Du Barry was the last maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XV, replacing Madame de Pompadour as the king's official mistress in 1769. When Vigée Le Brun painted her in 1781, Du Barry was living in semi-retirement at Versailles, having survived the transition to Louis XVI's reign despite the hostility of Marie Antoinette. The Philadelphia Museum of Art holds this panel portrait, which presents Du Barry with the animated, slightly informal sensibility that characterised Vigée Le Brun's approach to women of fashion. Du Barry was eventually arrested during the Terror and guillotined in 1793, making this portrait a document of a world about to be violently destroyed. Vigée Le Brun was personally acquainted with Du Barry through court circles and brought particular sympathy to her subjects from that milieu. The choice of panel as support suggests this was conceived as an intimate cabinet portrait rather than a large public statement.

Panel support with oil, enabling a particularly smooth and luminous surface finish. Vigée Le Brun exploits the panel's stability for refined detail work in the face and the elaborate hairdressing fashionable in the 1780s. Her characteristic warm lighting gives the flesh a soft glow, while the detailed treatment of lace and fabric demonstrates technical virtuosity.