Madame Molé-Reymond with Muff

Madame Molé-Reymond with Muff from 1786 at the Louvre depicts an actress of the Comédie-Française in fashionable winter attire. The muff and fur-trimmed costume connect the portrait to the culture of fashion and display that characterized pre-revolutionary Parisian society, where theater and visual art intersected in the cult of celebrity. 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 fur muff and winter costume provide rich textural contrasts that Vigée Le Brun renders with virtuosic skill. Warm flesh tones against the cool fur create a sensuous interplay of textures and temperatures.