Detail of a Portrait of a Young Woman by Vigee-LeBrun in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, June 2010

Portrait of a Young Woman
(Countess Worontzoff ?)
about 1797
Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, French, 1755–1842

Dimensions: 82.2 x 70.5 cm (32 3/8 x 27 3/4 in.)

Medium or Technique: Oil on canvas

Classification: Paintings

Type: Portrait - Single - Female

Accession Number: 17.3256

Vigée-Le Brun achieved great fame for her portraits of the French aristocracy. Because women were not allowed to attend the official art schools, Vigée-Le Brun was primarily self-taught. She nevertheless gained admission to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture through the support of her chief patron, the queen Marie Antoinette. When the French Revolution began in 1789, Vigée-Le Brun fled France and spent thirteen years in exile, painting the nobility of Naples, Austria, Poland, Russia, and Switzerland. Some scholars think that the charming young woman in this portrait may be Countess Irina Ivanovna Worontzov, a Russian aristocrat who posed for the painter.


Text from: www.mfa.org/collections/object/portrait-of-a-young-woman-...