Madame de Staël as Corinne at Cape Miseno
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.In Switzerland, Vigée Le Brun painted Madame de Staël (1766–1817), an influential writer banished from France by Napoleon. The sitter had recently published Corinne, a novel about a woman struggling and failing to achieve creative and romantic independence. Understandably, she disliked this unflattering portrait and had an almost identical but more attractive version painted by another, less important artist.
Artwork Details
- Title: Madame de Staël as Corinne at Cape Miseno
- Artist: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755–1842 Paris)
- Date: 1807–9
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 55 1/8 × 46 1/2 in. (140 × 118 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de la Ville de Genève, Gift of Madame Necker-de-Saussure, 1841 (1841-0003)
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings