A virtuoso painter highly regarded by Marie-Antoinette, she liberated the art of portraiture by depicting smiling and natural faces. Signed portrait of Dr. Virginia Giraud of History.
Scandal in the hall of the Royal Academy of Painting. In this year 1787, Élisabeth Viguet Le Brun, Marie-Antoinette’s favorite portrait painter, exhibited a painting of her holding her daughter. In this self-portrait, the artist is smiling, between his pink lips we can see his pearly teeth, the corners of which rise towards his ears. Painting a happy smile is therefore subversive… For centuries, models have been painted with their mouths closed, a matter of elegance. Aristocrats and bourgeois wanted to be represented according to existing artistic codes. Their faces are often expressionless, or barely illuminated by a mischievous smile, or self-righteous, but always pursed lips. A wide smile that exposes the inside of the mouth can betray decayed teeth due to lack of care and indicates lax morals or belonging to the lower class. The girl with the pearl earring de Vermeer, painted in 1665, sighs because he is only a servant. On the other hand, when Rembrandt painted himself laughing out loud in 1668, he clearly wanted to shock. But a beautiful happy smile, as spontaneous as the one we captured on a photo today, no one did it until Vizier Le Brun.
Early recognition before forced exile
Elizabeth, the daughter of a pastel artist, has a penchant for drawing. His father encouraged him to practice with his artist friends, and the young virtuoso began earning a living at the age of 14. Apart from talent, clients love her youth. At the age of 20, he is the most famous portrait painter in France. His authority allows him to obtain orders from the court. In 1783 he immortalized the Queen in a white muslin coat, without a corset or hair powder. Ease of starting another scandal.
One of the first real smiles he painted was undoubtedly his own in a self-portrait dated 1782. This innovative act had nothing to do with politics. Elisabeth Viguet Le Brun follows her sense of aesthetics. He likes to paint women in skimpy dresses to show off their faces rather than the miles of silk that suffocate them. He wants to show them on the canvas as they are in the intimacy of the pose: happy, sensitive and smiling. After putting his hand to his own face, he paints smiles on the parted lips of his models, opens the teeth of the queen’s friends, like those of the noble Gabriel de Polignac. On October 5, 1789, while the Parisians were returning the royal family to the capital, Elizabeth was exiled. For twenty years he criss-crossed Europe, offering his services in courts from Naples to Berlin via St. Petersburg. She perfects her style, that of a portrait painter of free women in front of her easel. The English lady Hamilton appears in all her sensuality, dressed as a bacchante, a broad smile enlivening her face. Even Caroline Murat, Napoleon’s sister, lets you see white incisors covered in crimson.
When she returned to France in 1802, Elizabeth Viget Le Brun was considered the best portrait painter in Europe. Having become the artist of the world’s ladies motivated by his love for feminine delicacy, he stands out as the creator of a modern smile.
Source: Le Figaro
