Portrait de Carlo Gastone della Torre di Rezzonico

This 1791 portrait of Carlo Gastone della Torre di Rezzonico was painted during Vigée Le Brun’s Italian sojourn following her flight from revolutionary France. The Italian Grand Tour aristocracy and cultural figures provided Vigée Le Brun with commissions that sustained her during exile while building her international reputation. 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 male portrait shows Vigée Le Brun’s ability to render masculine features with the same luminous technique she applied to female subjects. The composition presents the intellectual sitter with dignified restraint.