Marie Antoinette Gathering the Brushes of Madame Vigée Le Brun, 1784
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Vigée Le Brun and Marie Antoinette were both born in 1755. The queen gave birth to her first child, Madame Royale, in 1778, and Madame Le Brun to her daughter Julie in 1780. Several years later, a pregnant Vigée Le Brun arrived for a sitting at Versailles. In her eagerness to please the queen, she spilled her brushes on the floor. When she leaned down to pick them up, she was stopped by Marie Antoinette, who, as Vigée Le Brun wrote, “insisted on gathering them all up herself.”
Artwork Details
- Title: Marie Antoinette Gathering the Brushes of Madame Vigée Le Brun, 1784
- Artist: Alexis-Joseph Pérignon (French, Paris 1806–1882 Paris)
- Date: ca. 1859
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 53 1/8 × 39 1/4 in. (135 × 99.7 cm)
Frame: 64 1/2 × 51 1/4 in. (163.8 × 130.2 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: New Orleans Museum of Art, Gift of Joseph Baillio (2010.150)
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings