Louise-Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun managed to balance an artistic career with celebrity and femininity.

Obtaining her first commissions at the age of 15, she was inspired by great masters such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Correggio. She very quickly became one of the most renowned portraitists in the 18th century and official painter to Queen Marie Antoinette for whom she had a boundless admiration. Her talent was universally recognised and her status as a woman did not hamper her career. Vigée Le Brun was afforded the opportunity to experience all the pomp and splendour of the royal court during the reign of Louis XVI. And, her work was a mirror that reflected the conventions and ideology of the ‘enlightened’ elite of the late 18th century. In 1789, Vigée-Le Brun went into self-imposed exile, travelling across Europe to such courts as Florence, Rome, Venice and Vienna, and beyond to Russia and England. 

Upon her return to France in 1800, Vigée Le Brun penned Souvenirs conveying, “painting and living are synonymous for me.”