Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun

International audienceÉlisabeth Vigée Le Brun was the official portraitist of Marie-Antoinette and a worldly artist who excelled at constructing representations of herself and of others. In October 1789, she emigrated to Italy, then over the next twenty years, criss-crossed the continent from Rome to Saint Petersburg, ending with a sojourn in England. Between 1835 and 1837, she published her Souvenirs, weaving artistic sociability into her chronicles of the lives of the European elite. This article discusses the many relationships Vigée Le Brun developed with Britons and British expatriates, as well as the opinions on British social practices she revealed in her autobiography