Portrait of Countess Maria Theresia Bucquoi, ne Parr (1746-1818)

This 1793 portrait of Countess Maria Theresia Bucquoi at the Minneapolis Institute of Art was painted during Vigée Le Brun’s Viennese period. The Bucquoi (Buquoy) family, Bohemian-Austrian nobility of originally French origin, belonged to the Habsburg aristocratic circles that provided steady patronage during the artist’s Central European exile. 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 portrait shows Vigée Le Brun’s accomplished Viennese manner with careful attention to aristocratic costume and accessories. Her characteristic luminous flesh tones and flattering light create an image of refined elegance.