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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 10
Lesson 1: Rococo- A beginner's guide to the Age of Enlightenment
- A beginner's guide to Rococo art
- The Formation of a French School: the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture
- Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to Cythera
- Watteau, Pilgrimage to Cythera
- Boucher, Madame de Pompadour
- The Tiepolo Family
- Vigée Le Brun, Self-Portrait with her Daughter, Julie
- Vigée Le Brun, Self-Portrait with her Daughter
- Vigée Le Brun, Self-Portrait
- Vigée Le Brun, Madame Perregaux
- Unlocking an 18th-century French mechanical table
- Bernard II van Risenburgh, Writing table
- Construction of an 18th-century French mechanical table
- The inlay technique of marquetry
- Fragonard, The Swing
- Fragonard, The Swing
- Fragonard, The Swing
- Fragonard, The Meeting
- Greuze, The Village Bride
- Architecture in 18th-century Germany
- Joachim Michael Salecker, Cup with cover with Hebrew inscriptions
- Maria Sibylla Merian, an introduction
- Maria Sybilla Merian's Metamorphosis of a Small Emperor Moth on a Damson Plum: Getty Conversations
- Rococo Art
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Vigée Le Brun, Madame Perregaux
Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, Madame Perregaux, 1789, oil on oak panel,
99.6 x 78.5 cm (Wallace Collection, London)
Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Who is Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun? Does anyone know anything more about her?
Who is Madame Perregaux?(12 votes)- She was a very important female painter in the 18th century. She painted for Marie Antoinette. After the Revolution, she fled to Italy, Austria and Russia. She returned to France during Napoleon's reign. She was very popular. I didn't know there were famous female painters from this time.
Madame Perregaux was the wife of a French banker and art collector.(14 votes)
- What is the name of the painting shown at? I really like that one 0:44(6 votes)
- The name of the painting atis entitled, "Self Portrait in a Straw Hat" by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun sometime around 1782. It seems Le Brun imitated the Portrait of Susanna Lunden(?) ('Le Chapeau de Paille' (meaning The Straw Hat)) around 1622-5 by Peter Paul Rubens. Vigée Le Brun had apparently seen the painting in Antwerp and inspired her to paint her self portrait in a similar fashion. 0:44(7 votes)
- I don't understand the sentence "...Completion" by her husband...?" What is the critic saying?(1 vote)
- the transcript should likely read, "This is a commission by her husband." OR, "This is commissioned by her husband."(2 votes)
- The colors in this painting is vibrant and vintage the datjened edges are critique, why such defaulted and calm message ?(1 vote)
- Well this was a portrait painting, the message connected with it is meant to show the personality and vibrance of the sitter who was painted. This would have been something that was commissioned for either their family or as a gift.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(soft piano music) Lady: This is a remarkable
portrait. It's so life-like. I love her dress, her
collar, her bow, and her hat, and the feather, when
the curtain she pulls away, and how she peaks out at something. Man: It's so animated.
It's really wonderful. For all of the artifist,
all of the complexity, and the attention to
costume. It's not only very natural, but she
comes through. For the energy and curiosity, it feels if you get a sense of who she really is. Lady: Oh! Completely. This is
[completion] by her husband here in the eve of the French
Revolution. Her name is Madame Perregaux. This is a
portrait by Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun. Man: I think it's really
interesting since ... look at the way the
painting is constructed. She's taken a very
simple composition and a very traditional one of a
woman, through the half -length portrait, with a curtain
on one side, and an open space on the other at
a balcony. She's created, first of all, the sense of the Revelation, by pulling the curtain back. Lady: Kind of a little drama. Man: Absolutely. Then she's
also formally constructing that lovely arch on the
lower right. That begins then to set off a couple of other
arch's. The arch's of her arms, of her collar, of her
hat, and then of that lovely red ribbon that
trims her waistcoat. Lady: She's taken a formal element of that broke curtain we see
behind figures in portraits and made it something much more playful. Man: Yeah. It really engaging
it. It's just I think a masterful example of
how the portrait can be brought to life. (piano music)