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قراءة كتاب Vigée Le Brun
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MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY —
T. LEMAN HARE
VIGÉE LE BRUN
1755-1842
PLATE I.—MARIE ANTOINETTE. Frontispiece
(At Versailles)
The first portrait that Vigée Le Brun painted, in her twenty-fourth year (1779) of Marie Antoinette. Here is no hint of the tragedy that was to overwhelm the handsome young daughter of Austria; all was as yet but gaiety and roses and sunshine and pleasant airs, and the glamour that hovers about a throne. But there are signs of the imperious temper of her house, combined with the levity and frivolity of manners which were so early to make her unpopular.
Vigée Le Brun
BY HALDANE MACFALL
ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
1907
CONTENTS
| I. | The Beginnings |
| II. | The Wonderful Child |
| III. | Marriage and Motherhood |
| IV. | Marie Antoinette |
| V. | Sweet Exile |
| VI. | The End |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Plate | ||
| I. | Marie Antoinette At Versailles |
Frontispiece |
| II. | Madame Vigée Le Brun and Child In the Louvre |
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| III. | Madame Vigée Le Brun and Child In the Louvre |
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| IV. | Portrait of Madame Vigée Le Brun In the National Gallery, London |
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| V. | The two elder Children of Marie Antoinette At Versailles |
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| VI. | Portrait of Madame Molé-Raymond In the Louvre |
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| VII. | Marie Antoinette and her Children At Versailles |
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| VIII. | Peace bringing back Plenty In the Louvre |
I
THE BEGINNINGS
In Paris, in the Rue Coquillière, Louis the Fifteenth being King of France—or rather the Pompadour holding sway thereover—there lived a witty, amiable fellow who plied the art of painting portraits in oils and pastels after the mediocre fashion that is called "pleasing." This Louis Vigée and his wife, Jeanne Maissin, moved in the genial enthusiastic circle of the lesser artists, passing through their sober day without undue excitement; for fame and wealth and the prizes of life were not for them. Boucher was lord of art; and La Tour and Greuze and Chardin were at the height of their genius; but honest Louis Vigée could but plod on at his pleasing portraits, and sigh that the gods had not borne to him the immortal flame.
Yet he was to come near to the glory of it—nearer than he thought. 'Twas a pity that he was robbed of the splendour of basking in the reflected radiance, and by a fish's bone.
It was to have its beginning in that year after the indolent but obstinate king, having fallen foul of his Parliaments in his game of facing-both-ways in the bitter strife 'twixt Church and people, patched up a peace with the Parliament men.
PLATE II.—MADAME VIGÉE LE BRUN AND CHILD