Circle Of Elizabeth Vigee The Brown 1755-1842 Late 18th Century Empire Portrait Of A Pastel Aristocrat

Important pastel attributed to a circle of Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, the official portraitist of Marie-Antoinette, the most famous and brilliant portraitist of the eighteenth century in France - even in Europe.

Vigée Lebrun created intimate or grandiose portraits of the most eminent personalities of the eighteenth century in France and in the courts of Europe, until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

At the end of the Ancien Régime, the artist found refuge in European, Italian and Russian courts; her emigration will last from 1789 to 1802 when she lives and maintains great speed by the force of her brush subjugating the Academies of paintings of Rome, Bologna, Parma, Florence and Saint Petersburg. She finally returned to Paris on January 18, 1802, finding her friends Hubert Robert and Greuze and joined the circle of Joséphine Bonaparte.
She put herself at the service of the Empire as well as the European aristocracy, making trips to England until 1805, the date of her (almost) definitive return to France. In 1807, she returned to Switzerland to move away from the Empire, where she met Madame de Stael. She returned to France two years later and moved to Louveciennes, living the rest of the year in her Parisian home.

The incomparable finesse of his touch, the sensitivity of his colors, the originality of his staging were fully recognized during the monographic exhibition that the Grand Palais devotes to him in 2015. Daughter of the pastelist Louis Vigée (she exceeds very quickly), we also owe him very delicate pastels and removed. Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun is definitely a major painter, a portraitist of captivating genius with a strong, intimate personality of all circles of European power, excelling also in the technique of pastel, whose author of our portrait is close; finesse and softness of the pastel, the brilliance of the look, but also the port and the knot so particular of this silk tie are not without evoking the portrait (oil on canvas) by Vigée Lebrun of Prince Ivan Baryatinsky, also without wig, hair natural, in a dark coat, probably velvet, made between 1802 and 1805.
The subject of our portrait seems to be a Russian or English noble, notability of the late eighteenth or first Empire.

On a verdigris backdrop, the perfection of his complexion, the quality of his expression, his proud bearing, the nobility of his look, the delicacy of his features and his hair, betray a contemporary pastelist emeritus from Vigée Lebrun. , maybe a student.

Perfectly framed in a time frame, this very good portrait comes from a prestigious private collection.

Dimensions: approximately 56 x 44 cm at sight - 63 x 50 cm framed