Self Portrait

This 1800 self-portrait at the National Museum Cardiff shows Vigée Le Brun at the age of forty-five, toward the end of her years of exile. Having traveled through Italy, Austria, Russia, and Germany, the artist was preparing to return to France under Napoleon’s regime, and this self-portrait captures a moment of mature reflection and artistic confidence. 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 self-portrait demonstrates Vigée Le Brun’s continuing mastery of luminous flesh tones and flattering light. Her self-presentation maintains the elegance and beauty she cultivated throughout her career.