Page of Madame Perregaux by VIGE-LEBRUN, lisabeth in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

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Madame Perregaux

1789
Oil on panel, 100 x 79 cm
Wallace Collection, London

Madame Perregaux was the wife of a Parisian banker whose clients included the third Marquess of Hertford and the artist herself. The painting was bought by the fourth Marquess of Hertford to the present Wallace Collection.

Vige-Lebrun, ravished by the charm of her own appearance, and hardly able to paint a male sitter, continued the 18th century's cult of women. In Vige-Lebrun we have the last view of eighteen-century woman - who had begun as a goddess, became a courtesan, and now ended all heart - before Napoleon and War banished her from the centre of events.