The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vigee Le Brun, by Haldane MacFall

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Title: Vigee Le Brun

Author: Haldane MacFall

Release Date: October 22, 2009 [EBook #30314]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIGEE LE BRUN ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Illustration: Cover art]

MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY --
T. LEMAN HARE

VIGEE LE BRUN

1755-1842

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PLATE I.--MARIE ANTOINETTE. Frontispiece

(At Versailles)

The first portrait that Vigee 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.

[Illustration: Plate I.]

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Vigee Le Brun

BY HALDANE MACFALL

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT

REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

[Illustration: Title page art]

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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
At Versailles

II. Madame Vigee Le Brun and Child
In the Louvre

III. Madame Vigee Le Brun and Child
In the Louvre

IV. Portrait of Madame Vigee Le Brun
In the National Gallery, London

V. The two elder Children of Marie Antoinette
At Versailles

VI. Portrait of Madame Mole-Raymond
In the Louvre

VII. Marie Antoinette and her Children
At Versailles

VIII. Peace bringing back Plenty
In the Louvre

[Illustration: Vigee Le Brun]

I

THE BEGINNIN