Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, 'Self Portrait in a Straw Hat', 1782

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat

Room 15

About the work

Overview

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat is a signed copy by the artist of a very popular self portrait that she painted in 1782 and which is now in the collection of the baronne Edmond de Rothschild. The pose is deliberately modelled on Rubens’s Portrait of Susanna Lunden (?) (also in the National Gallery’s collection), which was formerly, but incorrectly, known as Le Chapeau de Paille (The Straw Hat).

Vigée Le Brun offers us a highly calculated image in which she explicitly associates herself with a great artist and his sitter. Looking at us directly with an open expression as she holds the tools of her profession (a palette and brushes), she presents herself as an elegant society lady and as an accomplished professional artist. By posing outdoors – and not, for example, in a studio – she replicates the contrasting light effects in Rubens’s portrait by combining ordinary daylight with direct sunlight.

In-depth

Elizabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s life spanned a tumultuous period of French history. Born in Paris in 1755, she was the daughter of a portrait painter, Louis Vigée. His early death in 1767 left her without a teacher, so she was largely self-taught. Her husband, the art dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, played a significant role in her early career by providing her with important contacts and commissions. She adopted his name but eventually left him – the marriage was formally dissolved in 1794.

In the years preceding the French Revolution in 1789, Vigée Le Brun enjoyed great success, particularly at the Versailles court. One of the most successful society portraitists of her time, she was also one of only four women admitted to the Académie royale de la peinture et de sculpture during the eighteenth century. She became the preferred painter of Marie-Antoinette and painted over 30 portraits of the Queen and her family. A portrait of Marie-Antoinette wearing a simple white cotton chemise and holding a rose caused a scandal when exhibited at the Salon in 1783 because of its informality. Following the arrest of the royal family in October 1789, Vigée Le Brun fled Paris and did not return until 1802.

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat is a signed copy by Vigėe Le Brun of a very popular self portrait she had painted in Brussels in 1782. The portrait was exhibited in the same year at the Salon de la Correspondance in Paris and at the 1783 Salon of the Académie royale. It is now in the collection of the baronne Edmond de Rothschild. The pose is deliberately modelled on Rubens’s Portrait of Susanna Lunden (?), which was formerly, but incorrectly, known as Le Chapeau de Paille (The Straw Hat) – ‘paille’ (straw) may be a corruption of ‘poil’ (hair), as the hat is in fact made of beaver felt. Vigée Le Brun had studied and copied paintings by Rubens and saw his portrait of Susanna when she was visiting Antwerp. The portrait was well known in France, at least by reputation, and several writers had commented on its depiction of light. In particular, they noted how the hat’s broad rim cast the face in shadow, which, as a result, was lit solely by reflected light. In a letter to Princess Kourakin included in her Memoirs (published in 1835), Vigée Le Brun similarly commented, ‘its great effect resides in the two different lights, ordinary daylight and the glow of the sun.’ She continues, ‘This painting delights me and inspired me to make my own portrait in Brussels in search of the same effect. I painted myself wearing a straw hat with a feather and a garland of wild flowers, and holding my palette. When the portrait was exhibited at the salon, I dare say it greatly enhanced my reputation.’

Despite its apparent informality, Vigée Le Brun offers us a highly calculated image in which she also explicitly associates herself with a great artist and his sitter. Looking at us directly with an open expression as she holds the tools of her profession (a palette and brushes), she presents herself as an elegant society lady and as an accomplished professional artist. By posing outdoors – and not, for example, in a studio – she replicates the contrasting light effects in Rubens’s portrait by combining ordinary daylight with direct sunlight. Although wearing a plain straw hat (in keeping with the original title of Rubens’s painting), Vigée Le Brun wears a low-cut dress unlike Susanna, who crosses her arms above her waist while peering out from under her hat. In keeping with the effect of naturalness, Vigée Le Brun’s hair is her own – rather than a wig (which she would be expected to wear for a formal portrait) – and is unpowdered. Her hat is decorated with fresh flowers and a white ostrich feather, whose textures echo the hair and clothing. The hat and flowers were consistent with contemporary fashions in the pastoral mode and especially recall pictures of shepherdesses – a favourite guise also of Marie-Antoinette, who even had a fake rustic village built in the grounds at Versailles.

Although the National Gallery’s version of the self portrait is a copy that Vigée Le Brun herself made of her original portrait (the copy was probably also painted in 1782), there are some minor, but significant, differences between the two paintings. In light perhaps of her comment that the original portrait had ‘greatly enhanced my reputation’, the National Gallery’s version presents a more assertive and self-assured image. This self-assurance is in part achieved by slight changes to the face – in the copy, for example, the eyebrows are heavier, the shape of the eyelids is given more emphasis, the lower lip is fuller, and the mouth more smiling. Vigée Le Brun has also changed the colour of her satin dress from a shade of lilac to a rose pink. Perhaps in response to comments by Salon critics that the unbroken blue sky of the original painting was too basic or just too blue, she has broken up the sky in the copy by adding wispy white clouds.

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Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Self Portrait in a Straw Hat
Artist: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
Artist dates: 1755 - 1842
Date made: 1782
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 97.8 × 70.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1897
Inventory number: NG1653
Location: Room 15
Collection: Main Collection
Subjects: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
Frame: 18th-century French Frame

Provenance

According to a letter of 14 December 1897 from S.T. Smith, in the posthumous sale of A.P. Pickering of 23 Queens Gardens, Hyde Park, London, held there by Messrs Mullett & Booker of Albion House, Hyde Park, 8 July 1897; bought by S.T. Smith, Duke Street, St James’s, London, from whom acquired for £600 in 1897.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Humphrey Wine, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings’, London 2018; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2014

Making Colour

The National Gallery (London)

18 June 2014 - 7 September 2014
2014

Rubens and His Legacy

Royal Academy of Arts

24 January 2015 - 10 April 2015
2019

Women's Histories: artists before 1900

Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand

23 August 2019 - 17 November 2019
2022

Discover Manet & Eva Gonzalès

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

1 June 2022 - 18 September 2022

Bibliography

1777

L.P. de Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la république des lettres et des arts depuis 1762 jusqu'à nos jours, ou journal d'un observateur, Paris 1777
1783

L. Fréron, 'Observations sur les ouvrages de peinture et de sculpture, exposés au Salon du Louvre, le 25 août 1783', L'Année littéraire, 1783, pp. 259-66
1794

J.-P.-B. Le Brun, Précis historique de la vie de la citoyenne Lebrun, peintre, Paris 1794
1828

J.T.F.L. Tripier Le Franc, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Mme Lebrun, Paris 1828
1835

E.L. Vigée Le Brun, Souvenirs, Paris 1835
1890

C. Pillet, Madame Vigée-Lebrun, Paris 1890
1908

P. de Nolhac, Madame Vigée-Lebrun: Peintre de la Reine Marie-Antoinette, Paris 1908
1909

H. MacFall, Vigée Lebrun, London 1909
1915

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1917

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1919

A. Blum, Madame Vigée-Lebrun, peintre des grandes dames du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1919
1946

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1957

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1977

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1982

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1982

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1983

H.T. Douwes Dekker, 'Gli autoritratti di Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842)', Antichità viva, XXII/4, 1983, pp. 31-5
1985

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1988

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1989

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1989

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1992

P. Radisich, 'Qui peut définir les femmes? Vigée-Lebrun's Portraits as an Artist', Eighteenth Century Studies, XXV, 1992, pp. 441-68
1993

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1994

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1994

X. Brooke, Face to Face: Three Centuries of Artists' Self-Portraiture (exh. cat. Walker Art Gallery, 28 October 1994 - 8 January 1995), Liverpool 1994
1994

M.D. Sheriff, 'Woman? Hermaphrodite? History Painter?: On the Self-Imaging of Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun', Eighteenth Century, XXXV/1, 1994, pp. 3-27
1995

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1995

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1995

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1995

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1996

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1997

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1997

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1997

A. Rosenthal, 'She's got the Look!: Eighteenth-Century Female Portrait Painters and the Psychology of a Potentially "Dangerous Employment"', in J. Woodall (ed.), Portraiture: Facing the Subject, Manchester 1997, pp. 147-66
1998

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1998

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1999

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1999

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2001

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2001

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2001

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2002

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2005

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2005

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2006

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2006

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2018

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Frame

The frame is in a French Louis XVI style, dating from the late eighteenth century. It features a wide hollow moulding. Pearls at the top edge are carved in oak, and the lamb’s-tongue motif at the sight edge is made from composition. The frame has been adapted but retains some of the original gilding.

This frame exemplifies the experimental use of composition – a French material, consisting of a malleable mass pressed into moulds. Once gilded, composition looks like carved wood; it revolutionised nineteenth-century frame-making by enabling mass production.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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