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She was born in Paris to a painter and she began painting as a very young girl. By the time she was in her early teens, she was already painting portraits professionally. After her studio was seized for practicing without a license, she applied to the "Académie de Saint Luc" who willingly exhibited her works in their Salon. On October 25, 1774, she was made a member of the Académie de Saint Luc.
In 1776, she married Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, a painter and art dealer. She painted portraits of many of the nobility of the day and as her career blossomed, she was invited to the Palace of Versailles to paint Queen Marie Antoinette. So pleased was the Queen that over the next several years, Ms. Vigee-Lebrun was commissioned to do numerous portraits of the Queen, her children, and other members of the Royal family and household.
In 1781 she and her husband toured Flanders and the Netherlands where the works of the Flemish masters inspired her to try new techniques. There, she painted portraits of some of the nobility, including the Prince of Nassau.
On May 31, 1783, Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun was accepted as the first female member of France’s "Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture" as a painter of historical allegory. The admission of a female was opposed by the men in charge, but eventually they were overruled by an order from King Louis XVI after Marie Antoinette put considerable pressure on her husband to end the discrimination against women.
After the arrest of the royal family during the French Revolution Vigée-Lebrun fled France and lived and worked for some years in Italy, AustriaAustria is a landlocked country in Central Europe, a federation of nine states. Austria is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the, and RussiaThe Russian Federation ( Russian: , transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija , or Russia (Russian: , transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija , is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With, where her experience in dealing with an aristocratic clientele was still useful. In RomeRome ( Italian and Latin Roma is the capital city of Italy, and of its Lazio region. It is located on the lower Tiber river, near the Mediterranean Sea, at 41°50'N, 12°15'E. The Vatican City State, a sovereign enclave within Rome, is the seat of the Roman, her paintings met with great critical acclaim and she was elected to the Roman "Accademia di San Luca." In Russia, she was received by the nobility and painted numerous members of Catherine the Great'sCatherine the Great Catherine II II Yekaterina II Alekseyevna ( April 21, 1729 November 6, 1796), born Sophie Augusta Fredericka and usually known in English as Catherine the Great reigned as empress of Russia from June 28, 1762 to her death in 1796. family. While there, Ms. Vigee-Lebrun was made a member of the "Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg."
She was welcomed back to France during the reign of Emperor Napoleon I. Much in demand by the elite of EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se, she visited EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England at the beginning of the 19th century and painted the portrait of several British notables including George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron ByronElisabeth Vigee-Lebrun George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron ( January 22, 1788 April 19, 1824) was the most widely read English language poet of his day. His best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan''. The latter wa. In 1807 she traveled to Switzerland and was made an honorary member of the "Societe pour l'Avancement des Beaux-Arts" of Geneva.
She published her memoirs in 1835 and 1837, which provide an interesting view of the training of artists at the end of the period dominated by royal academies.
Still very active with her painting, in her fifties, she purchased a house in Louveciennes , Île-de-France, and lived there until the house was seized by the Prussian Army during the war in 1814. She stayed in Paris until her death on March 30, 1842 when her body was taken back to Louveciennes and buried in the cemetery near her old home.
Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun is considered the most important female artist of the 18th century. In addition to private collections, her works can be found at major museums in Europe and the United States.
The image depicted here of Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun is a photo of a self-portrait, painted in 1782, currently in the National Gallery, London.