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Shown from the shins up, two elegantly dressed women and two young boys, all with light skin, sit together on a bench in front of a stone balustrade with a forest landscape beyond in this horizontal portrait painting. The people are brightly lit from our left but the darkened sky suggests dusk. The boys lean onto the woman at the center of the composition, and the second woman sits to her right, our left. All of the people have pale skin, rosy cheeks, delicate noses, and their pink lips all turn up in slight smiles. The woman on our left sits with her body angled toward her friend but she turns her face to look at us with brown eyes under curving brows. Her wavy, flint-gray hair is loosely bound up so it frames the sides of her face and curls over her shoulders. Her swirling, white head covering is edged in gold and tied in a bow over her left ear, on our right. Her long-sleeved dress has a tight-fitting bodice and a low, scooped neckline lined with pleated white fabric. Her dress shimmers from sapphire blue to dusky pink, suggesting it is iridescent taffeta. Large pearls hang off the end of round, gold, hoop earrings, and a glimmering gold sash is tied around her waist. She sits with her left hand resting on her friend’s right shoulder, closer to her, and she gestures toward one of the young boys leaning on the friend’s lap with her other hand. The second woman sits with her body facing us, and she looks off to our left with gray-blue eyes. Her silvery gray, upswept hair is covered with a long piece of white fabric with pink stripes, twisted loosely into a turban-like head covering. She wears dangling gold earrings, and her dress is striped with parchment white and rust red. Her right hand, on our left, rests on her friend’s knee, and her other arm is wrapped around the older boy. He kneels on the bench and leans forward, wrapping the arm we can see around her torso. His face near hers, he looks up at her from under his lashes. A dimple marks the flushed cheek we can see. His chestnut-brown hair falls around his shoulders, and he wears a gingerbread-brown suit. The smaller and younger of the two boys rests his head on his crossed hands on her thigh, and looks out at us. He wears a white garment with a lilac-purple sash tied in a bow around his waist. There is a pale pink rosebush in the lower right corner of the painting, near the kneeling boy’s foot. The landscape beyond the balustrade is filled with dark green trees against a slate-blue sky. The painting is created with blended brushstrokes, giving it a soft look.

Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun

The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de Rougé with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien, 1787

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 56

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 123.4 x 155.9 cm (48 9/16 x 61 3/8 in.)

framed: 177.8 x 203.2 x 19.1 cm (70 x 80 x 7 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Purchased as the Gift of the Bay Foundation in memory of Josephine Bay Paul and Ambassador Charles Ulrick Bay

Accession Number

1964.11.1

Artists / Makers

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (artist) French, 1755 - 1842

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Overview

Madame Vigée Le Brun was part of the world she painted and, like her aristocratic patrons, was under threat of the guillotine after the revolution. She was forced to flee Paris in disguise in 1789. She had been first painter to Queen Marie–Antoinette and her personal confidant. The queen had intervened to ensure her election to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, an honor accorded few women.

More than two–thirds of Vigée Le Brun's surviving paintings are portraits. Most, like this one, are of women and children who are idealized —flattered—into a kind of family resemblance. These unrelated young women, for example, could easily be mistaken for sisters. Their garments, airy silks and iridescent taffetas, are almost more individual than their faces, although both women were friends of the artist. The picture was hailed as a tribute to friendship and maternal love when it was shown at the Salon of 1787.

Provenance

One of the sitters, Victurnienne Delphine Nathalie, marquise de Rougé [1759-1828, née Rochechouart Mortemart], Paris, Château de la Bellière, Château de Beaune-la-Rolande, and Château de Moreuil; by inheritance to her son, comte Adrien Gabriel Victurnien de Rougé [1782-1838], Château de Guyencourt, Cuyencourt-sur-Noye (Somme); by inheritance to his son, comte Armel-Jean-Victurnien de Rougé [1813-1898]; by inheritance to his son, Armel-Marie-Fernand de Rougé [b. 1847], Paris and Château de Saint-Symphorien-des-Monts (Manche), until at least 1914; by inheritance to his son, comte Jean de Rougé [1880-1960], Château de Saint-Symphorien; presumably to his nephew, Charles-Edouard de Cassagnes de Beaufort de Miramon-Pesteils [b. 1930]; purchased 1960 by (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York); purchased 24 June 1964 by the Bay Foundation, New York; gift 1964 to NGA.

Associated Names

Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

1787: Salon of 1787, Paris, no. 98.

1963: Style, Truth and the Portrait, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963, no. 67, repro.

1964: Accessions and Proposals, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, no. 10.

1976: The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1976, no. 261, repro.

1982: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 1755-1842, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1982, no. 24, repro., as The Marquise de Pezay and the Marquise de Rougé With Her Sons.

2005: Baillio, Joseph. The Arts of France from François 1er to Napoléon 1er. (Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co.) New York, 2005: 74, 61, repro., fig. 67.

2011: Female Creators: Women Artists from the Century of Madame Vigée Le Brun, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, 2011, no. 64, repro.

2015: Elisabeth Louise Vigée le Brun (1755-1842), Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2015-2016, no. 79, repro.

Bibliography

1787: Journal Général de France 1787. "Discours des morts sur les tableaux exposés en 1787." In Collection Deloynes, 1881: vol. 15, msp. 938.

1787: Les grandes prophéties du grand Nostradamus. . . . Paris, 1787: 25.

1787: Potocki, Stanislas Kostka. Lettre d’un étranger sur le Salon de 1787. Paris, 1787: 17-18.

1787: Robin, Jean Baptiste. L’ami des artistes au salon. Paris, 1787: 35.

1835: Vigée Le Brun, Élisabeth Louise. Souvenirs de Madame Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. . . . 3 vols. Paris, 1835 – 1837: 1:92.

1881: “Discours des morts sur les tableaux exposés en 1787.” In Collection de pièces sur les beaux-arts (1673-1808) . Ed. by M. Deloynes. Paris, 1881: vol. 15.

1908: Nolhac, Pierre de. Madame Vigée-Le Brun, peintre de la reine Marie-Antoinette (1755 – 1842). Catalogue by H. Pannier. Paris, 1908: 124, 251.

1915: Helm, William Henry. Vigée-Lebrun, 1755 – 1842: Her Life, Works and Friendships. London,n.d. [1915]: 125, 215, 219.

1919: Blum, André. Madame Vigée-Lebrun, peintre des grandes dames du xviii e siècle. Paris, 1919: 98, 105.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 137.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:326, color repro.

1966: Davidson, Ruth. “In the Museums:Paintings.” Antiques 89, no. 1 (Jan. 1966): 136, repro.

1966: D’Otrange Mastai, M.-L. “Vigée-Lebrun Group Portrait.” The Connoisseur 161 (1966): 277, repro.

1966: Gazette des Beaux-Arts 57 (1966): repro., cat. 222.

1966: “Recent Donations to Museums in U.S.A.” Apollo 83, no. 49 (March 1966): 235, repro.

1967: Bischoff, Ilse. “Vigée-Lebrun and the Women of the French Court.” Antiques 92, no. 5 (Nov. 1967): 711, repro., 712, fig. 10.

1968: “Accessions of American and Canadian Museums.” Art Quarterly 28 (August 1968): 8, repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 124, repro.

1974: Tufts, Eleanor. Our Hidden Heritage: Five Centuries of Women Artists. New York, 1974: 132, repro., 133, fig. 71.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 366, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 343, no. 466, color repro.

1981: Baillio, Joseph. “Le dossier d’une oeuvre d’actualité politique: Marie-Antoinette et ses enfants par Madame Vigée Le Brun.” L’Oeil 308 (March 1981) and 310 (May 1981): 59, 91 nn. 28 – 29, color repro., 57, fig. 8.

1982: Sutton, Denys. “Madame Vigée Le Brun: A Survivor of the Ancien Régime.” Apollo 116, no. 245 (July 1982): 30, color repro., 27, pl. 7.

1982: Tufts, Eleanor. “Vigée Le Brun.” Art Journal 42, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 338.

1984: Walker, John. "National Gallery of Art, Washington." New York, 1984: 341, no. 463, color repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 341, no. 463, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 425, repro.

1986: Lesko, Diane. “Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun’s Julie Lebrun as Flora.” Pharos (1986 – 1987): 6, repro., fig. 6.

1986: Mittler, Gene A. Art in Focus. Peoria, Ill., 1986: 52, repro., fig. 3.11.

1986: Schama, Simon. “The Domestication of Majesty: Royal Family Portraiture, 1500 – 1850.” In Art and History: Images and Their Meaning. Ed. Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb. Cambridge, 1986: 177.

1989: Wasserstein, Wendy. “Portraits by a Lady.” Art & Antiques 6, no. 7 (Dec. 1989): 108 – 109, color repro.

1990: Gournay, Brigitte. “Maisons et hôtels appartenant a l’Hôpital des Incurables, 101 – 107 rue du Bac.” In Le Faubourg Saint-Germain, la rue du Bac, études offertes à Colette Lamy-Lassalle. Paris, 1990: 64, 73 n. 62, 228, no. 90, 142, color repro. (detail).

1992: Radisich, Paula Rea. “Que peut définir les femmes?: Vigée-Lebrun’s Portraits of an Artist.” 18th Century Studies 25 (Summer 1992): 446 n. 13, 451 n. 1, 452 n. 24, 447, repro., fig. 2.

1994: Bachmann, Donna G., and Sherry Piland. Women Artists: An Historical, Contemporary and Feminist Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J., 1994: 138, repro., fig. 9.

1997: Mitchell, Jerrine E. "Picturing Sisters: 1790 Portraits by J.L. David." Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, no. 2 (Winter 1997-1998): 194, fig. 14.

2000: Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 8, under fig. 2.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 261, no. 213, color repro.

2004: National Gallery of Art. "National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection." Selected and with commentaries by John Oliver Hand. Washington, 2004: no. 213, color repro.

2005: Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 61, fig. 67, 74 (not in the exhibition).

2006: Blanc, Olivier. Portraits de femmes artistes et modèles à l’époque de Marie-Antoinette. Paris, 2006: 21, 22, color repro.

2009: Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 93, 436-442, color repro.

2014: Aldecoa, Christiane de. "Élisabeth Louis Vigée Le Brun (Paris 1755-1842) de l’Académie Royale de Paris, de Rouen, De Saint-Luc, de Rome et d’Arcadie, de Parme et de Bologne, de Saint-Pétersbourg, de Berlin, de Genève et Avignon Autoportrait, ou une vie pour la peinture." Les Cahiers d'Histoire de l'Art no. 12 (2014) : 52, 54, color fig. 4.