ABSTRACT
Painter of portraits and famous throughout Europe, Elisabeth Vigee was bom in 1755, became known at age fifteen, received commissions from aristocrats at seventeen, and by age twenty was the official portraitist of the French Queen Marie-Antoinette. She married Louis Le Brun without enthusiasm; because he was a spendthrift and unfaithful, she worked hard to support herO self and her daughter, Adelaide, and finally left him for good when she fled Paris under the Revolution. The annus horribilis 1789 and the arrest of the king and queen sent her and her young daughter into years of exile. Her popO ularity as a portraitist, especially of women, made it possible for her to live by traveling from one country to another, from one palace to another, in all the capitals of Europe. Along the way she visited places that were important to her-Tile St. Pierre, for example, where her beloved author Rousseau had himself taken refuge-and she loved to hike in the mountains, take boat rides, and visit the usual galleries and cathedrals. She returned to Paris only in 1802 when Napoleon was consul and when France was again safe for aristocrats and for people like Vigee-Le Brun who sympathized with them.
