Young-Adult Book on Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun Highlights Her Extraordinary Achievements

Supremely talented and strategically charming, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) overcame tragedy and broke gender barriers to become one of the greatest portrait painters of all time.

Starting in her teens, she used her intelligence and beauty to attract powerful clients, who relied on her to style the personal identities they wanted to project to the world.

Vigée Le Brun’s parties and salons were the talk of Paris, and she became court painter to Marie Antoinette and was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Then came the French Revolution, when people demanded change to centuries-old systems of oppression. Vigée Le Brun was forced to run for her life, taking her young daughter but leaving her husband behind. Making her way through the countrysides and capitals of Europe and Russia—including a stay at the imperial court of Catherine the Great—the artist conquered fear and adversity to refashion her life and art.

Ages 13 and up.