Self-portrait of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Vigée Le Brun painted this Self-Portrait around 1790, during her years of European exile following her flight from Revolutionary Paris. Her self-portraits constitute a significant body of work that asserts her professional identity and artistic skill across the various courts where she sought patronage. The 1790 self-portrait shows the mature artist at the height of her international career, her confident gaze and professional bearing expressing the authority she had earned through decades of work for the highest aristocratic and royal clientele. The work demonstrates her ability to render her own face with the same attentive luminosity she brought to her most distinguished sitters.

Vigée Le Brun presents herself at her easel, palette in hand, with the confident directness of a master artist. The luminous flesh tones and elegant handling of fabric demonstrate the technical brilliance that made her the most celebrated woman painter of her era.