The painting by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun is one of her finer self-portraits and a work of considerable historical and artistic interest. It is clearly signed, dated, and situated by the artist, with the inscription, characteristic of the artist’s technique, scratched into the wet paint with a sharp implement: “L.E. Vigee Le Brun / à Vienne 1794.”
During her time living outside of France, Vigée Le Brun painted a number of self-portraits as expressions of gratitude towards individuals who had been particularly welcoming or helpful to her. While the specific recipient of this remarkable token of thanks remains unidentified, Joseph Baillio has proposed that it may have been addressed to another Viennese acquaintance to whom Vigée Le Brun owed a significant personal debt: Wenzel Anton, Prince Kaunitz-Rietberg (1711-1794).
Prince Kaunitz was a prominent Austrian diplomat and statesman in the Habsburg court, who held the office of State Chancellor for four decades and was a key architect of the Treaty of Versailles. Kaunitz, who was a founder of the Royal Academy in Brussels, a progressive patron of education and the arts and a dedicated art collector, provided Vigée Le Brun with crucial support upon her arrival in Vienna, further cementing his role as a significant benefactor in her life and career.
Before 1951
Boston and New York, Albert Henry Wiggin (1868–1951) and his wife Jessie Duncan Hayden (1872–1954).
After 1951
Greenwich, Connecticut, to their younger daughter, Muriel Wiggin (1897–1966) and her husband, Lynde Selden (1891–1972).
1977
New York, Christie, Manson & Wood International, 15 June 1977, lot 73 (illustrated in catalogue).
After 1977
New York, Wildenstein.
Before 2017
Japan, private collection.
2017
New York, Christie’s, sale, 31 October 2017, lot 32 (reproduced in catalogue with color detail on the cover, as well as in color in its ornate carved and gilded frame), where acquired by the present owner as a bequest to the Gaudium Magnum Foundation, Lisbon.
1987
Tokyo, Wildenstein, 12 February – 11 April 1987, Le Bonheur de vivre: la peinture et l’art français au XVIIIe siècle;
2011
Tokyo, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, 1 March – 8 May 2011, Créer au feminin. Femmes artistes du siècle de Madame Vigée Le Brun.
- Le Bonheur de vivre: la peinture et l’art français au XVIIIe siècle, exhibition catalogue (Tokyo, Wildenstein, 12 February – 11 April 1987), n.p., no number, illustrated in color;
- Créer au feminin. Femmes artistes du siècle de Madame Vigée Le Brun, exhibition catalogue (Tokyo, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, 1 March – 8 May 2011), Tokio 2011, pp. 180 and 252, no. 74; also cited p. 206, illustrated p. 181;
- É.L. Vigée Le Brun, Souvenirs, edited by Patrick Weiller, Paris 2015, vol. II, ill. p. 124;
- J. Baillio, in The Gaudium Magnum Collection. Highlights outside of Portugal, edited by C. L. de Angelis Corvi, Florence 2020, pp. 126-135;
- To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Vigée Le Brun by Joseph Baillio.
Scholars &
Contributors
How to cite:
C. & Research Team, Gaudium Magnum Foundation, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Self-Portrait, in Gaudium Magnum Foundation. The Painting Collection, ed. V. Rossi, with T. Borgogelli and A. Marengo, Lisbon 2026.
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