A new favorite

I have a new favorite painter!

The woman who painted this (above) famous painting of Marie Antoinette: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.
Early in my blogging days I blogged about Frank Dicksee and John William Waterhouse (the painter of my profile picture). I have a painting by each of them in the process of being hung in my bedroom. I think I'm going to have to add another, though, because I love this woman's art.
From the lesser known portraits of Marie Antoinette:

To her lovely self-portraits:

With her daughter, Julie

To her elegant ladies...

and very realistic children:

Look at her face: haven't you seen that very expression on real children before?

Fun fact about these girls: granddaughters (or friend's children or something) of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia,  they were originally in short-sleeved dresses but the empress felt it showed too much skin to have their arms bare! So Madame Vigée Le Brun added sleeves.

From what I've briefly read, her life sounds interesting too: a great favorite of Marie Antionette's, she fled France during the Revolution and spent some time in Russia (hence the portrait above). She painted aristocracy from all over Europe, in fact. She married an art seller and had one daughter, who fled with her (I'm not sure what happened to her husband, though). 

As we are studying the French Revolution era in history and I must write a report on someone from the period, I am considering writing it on her!

Not by Madame Vigée Le Brun, I just like it, too. I love 18th and 19th century portraits in general, actually.

Au revoir,