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Charles II’s Great Escape

23 April 2019
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International woman of history, biographer, posh doomer, thwarted nihilist, not goth, Saint-Just fan girl, chaotic good, anxious, flame haired Robespierre, ENFP, a sweet titbit for the Devil's mouth.

Currently working hard on my fifth book - a study of women guillotined during the French Revolution.

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Empress Alexandra publication update

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In the Footsteps of Marie Antoinette

4 February 2020

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  • Today's painting by Vigée Le Brun is her 1787 portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children with her second son Louis Charles, who was born on this day in 1785, taking pride of place on the Queen's lap. The boy would succeed his father as Louis XVII in January 1793 but would never be crowned and would eventually die in prison in June 1795 at the age of ten. The painting was commissioned in September 1785 and Vigée Le Brun was given precise instructions that the work should be a monumental formal depiction of the Queen and the royal children at Versailles as opposed to one of her more informal portraits of mothers with their children. Marie Antoinette gave birth to her fourth child, a daughter Sophie Hélène Béatrix in July 1786 at around the same time as work began on the piece but the baby unfortunately died just eleven months later and was therefore alluded to with an empty cradle. When Vigée Le Brun was working on the initial composition of her piece, she consulted her friend Jacques Louis David, who suggested a triangular composition that brought to mind images of the holy family. He would later vote for the execution of Louis XVI. The painting was intended for the Salon de Mars at Versailles but after the death of the Dauphin Louis Joseph in 1789, Marie Antoinette asked for it to be removed as it made her feel so sad. It was possibly this removal that saved it from violence during the Revolution, after which it became the object of secret pilgrimages by faithful royalists - when Vigée Le Brun visited it at Versalles many years later, the guard thanked her for all the tips that he had received from people who had paid to see it. A Gobelins tapestry version of the work was presented to Empress Alexandra of Russia by the French government and was placed in a prominent position in her rooms in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. #art #beauty #arthistory #inspiring #beautiful #portrait #history #18thcentury #paris #france #frenchhistory #womenshistory #fashionhistory #lovely #pretty #glamour #elegance #versailles #marieantoinette #royal #royalty #royalfamily #princess #queen #vigeelebrun #womanartist
  • Today's painting by Vigée Le Brun is her delightful portrait of Marie Gabrielle de Sinety (1761-1832), Comtesse de Gramont Caderousse gathering grapes, which was painted in 1784. Madame la Comtesse was the daughter of the Marquis de Sinety and was betrothed to her husband, who was the eldest son of the Marquis de Vachères, in 1779 in a ceremony that took place at Versailles and was witnessed by several members of the royal family. Marie Gabrielle was formally presented at court after her wedding that summer and swiftly became one of Marie Antoinette's closest friends. She escaped the revolution and became Duchesse de Caderousse when her husband, from whom she was separated by this point, inherited the title in June 1800. Although women of the Comtesse's class usually wore their hair powdered, Vigée Le Brun persuaded her to be painted with her hair in its natural state, which caused a furore when she went to the theatre straight after one of her sittings. 'I could not stand powdered hair,' the artist later recalled in her memoirs. 'I persuaded the beautiful Duchesse de Grammont-Caderousse not to use any for her portrait. Her hair was ebony black... arranged in irregular curls. After the sitting, which finished at the time of the midday meal, the Duchesse left her hair as it was and went to the theatre as she was. Such a lovely woman had to set the fashion, which gradually caught on and became widespread.' The painting can now be found in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. #art #beauty #arthistory #inspiring #beautiful #portrait #history #18thcentury #paris #france #frenchhistory #womenshistory #fashionhistory #lovely #pretty #glamour #elegance #marieantoinette #Versailles #vigeelebrun #womanartist
  • Just when you thought that @beautypie couldn't get any better, they started sending out emergency kittens in their boxes. ❤️😂❤️ #cats #catsofinstagram #kitten #kittensofinstagram #adorable #beautypie
  • Today's painting by Vigée Le Brun is her 1807 portrait of Caroline Murat, youngest sister of Napoléon, who was born on this day in 1782. Caroline had been made Grand Duchess of Berg and Clèves by her brother a year earlier but would reach even greater heights in 1808 when he made her Queen of Naples alongside her husband Joachim Murat, who also shared her birthday. Caroline was painted with her eldest daughter Letizia (1802-1859). I am not a massive fan of Caroline as she was thoroughly nasty to her sister-in-law Joséphine, whom I unashamedly adore, and it seems that Vigée Le Brun shared this antipathy as she later described the sittings for this portrait as a bit of a nightmare. 'It would be impossible for me to describe all the vexations, all the torments I had to endure while I was doing that portrait,' she wrote in her memoirs before listing Caroline's faults as a sitter, which included arrogance and unpunctuality. It's not really surprising though that Vigée Le Brun considered the parvenu Bonapartes to be rather a rough and ill mannered lot who seriously lacked the courtesy and consideration that she had enjoyed when painting Marie Antoinette and her circle. The painting is housed in Versailles. #art #beauty #arthistory #inspiring #beautiful #portrait #history #19thcentury #lovely #pretty #glamour #elegance #paris #france #frenchhistory #womenshistory #fashionhistory #dress #napoleon #bonaparte #empire #princess #royal #royalty #queen #vigeelebrun #womanartist
  • Today's painting by Vigée Le Brun is her luminously lovely portrait of Countess Ekaterina Vasilievna Skavronskaya, which she painted in 1790 in Naples, where the Countess' husband was Russian Ambassador. The beautiful Countess (1761-1829) was one of the five gorgeous Engelhardt sisters who caused a furore when they arrived at the Russian court in 1775 - in much the same manner as the Mazarinettes in 17th century France. The Engelhardt girls were the nieces of Catherine the Great's love Potemkin, who gave them all positions at court, showered them with riches, arranged prestigious marriages and made at least two of them his mistresses - with Ekaterina being the most favoured of all, to the extent that she is believed to have given birth to his child during a prolonged sojourn in the countryside in 1780. It was also rumoured that Ekaterina's marriage to Count Paul Skavronskaia was hastily arranged by Potemkin in order to conceal a second pregnancy. Despite all of this, Vigée Le Brun thought the Countess quite enchanting and wrote in her memoirs that she was 'gentle and pretty as an angel. In the daytime, she was constantly idle; she had no education, and her conversation was as empty as could be; despite all that, thanks to her ravishing face and angelic sweetness, she possessed invincible charm’. The miniature she is holding in her hand is a portrait of her husband, Count Skavronskaia who died in 1793, after which she married again, this time for love, to Giulio Renato Litta. Her younger daughter, also named Ekaterina, was the infamous society beauty Princess Bagration, who scandalised Europe with her affairs and separation from her husband in 1805. The painting is now in the collection of the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, where it entranced my boyfriend and I for quite some time last November. @jacquemartandre #art #beauty #arthistory #inspiring #beautiful #portrait #history #18thcentury #Russia #russianhistory #stpetersburg #gorgeous #lovely #pretty #glamour #countess #vigeelebrun #womanartist #paris #france
  • Today's Vigée Le Brun is a delightfully stately portrait of the future Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna of Russia, wife of Alexander I who succeeded to the throne when his father Paul I was assassinated on this day in 1801. Empress Elizabeth was born Princess Louise of Baden and was a daughter of Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden, and his wife, Landgravine Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt, whose sister Wilhelmina Louisa was the first wife of Tsar Paul I. #art #beauty #arthistory #inspiring #beautiful #portrait #history #18thcentury #Russia #russianhistory #romanov #royalty #royal #royalhistory #empress #tsarina #elegance #glamour #vigeelebrun #womanartist
  • As today is Mother's Day here in the UK, today's painting by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun is this delightful portrait of the Countess Ekaterina Sergeyevna with her two eldest children Grigory Alexandrovich and Elena Alexandrovna, which was painted in 1797. Countess Sergeyevna (1763-1830) was the daughter of Prince Sergei Trubetskoy and his wife Princess Elena Vasilievna Nesvitskaya and was married to one of the nephews of Catherine II's great love Prince Grigory Potemkin - which meant that she inevitably joined his well known circle of 'niece mistresses' as well as becoming a lady in waiting to Empress Catherine. Hope everyone celebrating is having a lovely Mother's Day! One of my boys is self isolating with his dad as he was staying there when the latter became ill and the youngest forgot all about it so I'm going to be taking advantage of the fact that my boyfriend is South African and having another go in May! Hopefully things will be better by then. x (This gorgeous painting is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.) #art #arthistory #beauty #history #18thcentury #fashion #style #pretty #lovely #womenshistory #fashionhistory #dress #Russia #russianhistory #romanov #royalty #vigeelebrun #womanartist
  • Today's painting by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun is this lovely portrait of her daughter Julie (1780-1819) as the goddess Flora, which was painted in 1799 just before the nineteen year old Julie married Gaëtan Bernard Nigris, the French born secretary to the assistant director of the imperial theatres in St Petersburg - a match that her mother did not approve of and which quickly ended in separation. Sadly, Le Brun and her daughter, whose portraits are amongst the most delightful and touching of her works, would eventually become completely estranged. This painting can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, Florida. #art #beauty #arthistory #inspiring #beautiful #portrait #history #18thcentury #fashion #style #dress #French #france #frenchhistory #womenshistory #fashionhistory #lovely #pretty #vigeelebrun #womanartist #flora #goddess #Russia

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