This memoirs chronicles Madame Vigée Lebrun's childhood and the early discovery of her talent, the fortuitous break that introduced her to the world of "portraiture of the stars," her expeditious flight from France at the height of the French Revolution, her continued success as a portraitist for the various royal houses of Europe, and her ultimate return to France. In this memoirs, Lebrun illustrates how she overcame the prejudices of the art world that prescribed how women painters could practice their art form, as well as the subject matter they could paint.
By : Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842),Translated by Lionel Strachey (1864 - 1927)
|
Madame Lebrun brought out her Memoirs at the suggestion of her friend, the Princess Dolgoruki, in 1835. The authoress was born in 1756, at Paris, where she died in 1842. She was the daughter of Louis Vigée, an obscure portrait painter. Her baptismal name was Marie Louise Elisabeth. In 1776 Mademoiselle Vigée was married to Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, a notable picture dealer and critic, known also to his contemporaries as an inveterate gambler.
This book forms a rendering of Madame Carette's edition of the Lebrun Memoirs, slightly abridged for the sake of uniformity with the "Memoirs of the Countess Potocka" and the "Memoirs of a Contemporary," issuing from the same hands as the present volume.
Comments
Post a Comment