Maria Grigorievna Viazemskaïa, Princess Golitsyna (1772-1865), seated three-quarter-length

This 1798 portrait of Maria Grigorievna Viazemskaïa, Princess Golitsyna, was painted during Vigée Le Brun’s highly productive Russian period. The Russian aristocracy proved among the most enthusiastic patrons of her career, commissioning dozens of portraits that document the cosmopolitan splendor of late Catherine-era Russian high society. 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 seated three-quarter-length format allows full display of the sitter’s elegant costume and bearing. Vigée Le Brun’s rendering of rich Russian fabrics and jewels adds to the portrait’s aristocratic magnificence.