Marie Antoinette with a Rose
Marie Antoinette with a Rose c1783 by French Painter Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755 – 1842); known for her work in the Rococo and Neoclassical styles, and best known for her fashionable portraits
This is a portrait of a young Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793); the Queen of France and wife to King Louis XVI (1754 -1793), who ruled France from 1774 – 1792.
She is standing in a garden in the early evening by a rose bush, with a large tree behind her set against a blue sky with greyish clouds covering most of the sky.
Marie is holding a pink rose in her hand left hand that is wrapped in a light blue ribbon to protect her hand from its thorns while holding the middle of the ribbon with her right hand as she looks at the viewer from her left to right turned posed.
She is a wearing a large sheer silk kerchief on light grey powdered hair, with fluffy feathers coming out of the top, that match the silk or satin dress with white lace borders and a matching ribbon across the low cut portion of the dress.
She is also wearing a double layer string pearl necklace, as well as triple loop pearl bracelets on both her wrist.
This is a retouched digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available for purchase as a rolled canvas print.
Info Below Derived From Wikipedia.org
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun who was also known as Madame Le Brun was born in Paris France on April 16, 1755 to French Portraitist and Fan Painter Louis Vigée (1715 – 1767) and hairdresser Jeanne (née Maissin) (1728 – 1800).
She also had a younger brother Louis-Jean-Baptiste-Étienne Vigée (1758 – 1820) who was a noted French playwright and a man of letters.
At around the age of 13 Élisabeth was engaging with the noted painters of her time, which included French Painters Gabriel François Doyen (1726 – 1806), Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 – 1805), and Joseph Vernet (1714 – 1789); gaining much from the advice they gave her as to her painting, and in her early teens began painting portraits professionally.
Then the studio she had established was seized fro practicing without a license, so she then applied to the Académie de Saint-Luc; which unwittingly exhibited her artwork in their salon, and in 1774 she was made a member of the Académie.
In 1776 she married Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, a painter and art dealer, and began showing her artwork at their home in Paris, the Hôtel de Lubert, and the Salons.
As Elisabeth career blossomed she was granted patronage by Queen Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793); for whom she painted over 30 portraits of the queen and her family, which led to the misconception that she was the official portraitist of Marie Antoinette.
On May 31, 1783, Elisabeth was made a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture; and was one of only 15 women to be granted full membership in the Académie between 1648 and 1793, along with her rival, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.