Vulgar History - Marie Antoinette's Favorite Painter, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

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00:00:57.560 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. 0.90

00:01:04.660 I'm your host, Anne Foster.

00:01:06.840 And we are entering a period of time that I call Marie Antoinette Month,

00:01:11.000 where this week and for the next, I think, seven weeks,

00:01:13.700 we're talking about people who are really close to Marie Antoinette,

00:01:17.100 culminating in a discussion of Marie Antoinette herself.

00:01:19.900 And today we're entering Marie Antoinette Month, which again is a period of seven weeks,

00:01:24.720 with a discussion of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun,

00:01:27.560 who was Marie Antoinette's, I wouldn't say close friend, but they were certainly friendly.

00:01:33.780 Marie Antoinette didn't have a lot of friends just because of who she was as the queen,

00:01:37.940 but she had a really close connection to Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. And if you imagine Marie

00:01:43.300 Antoinette in your head, what you're probably picturing is of a young woman wearing sort of

00:01:47.700 a big towering gray hairstyle. She's probably wearing a big broad dress. And that's probably 0.83

00:01:53.840 based on a portrait by Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun. She was really instrumental. She was sort of like

00:01:58.800 the law roach to Marie Antoinette's Zendaya in terms of like image craft. Anyway, we're talking

00:02:04.820 about Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun today to kick off Marie Antoinette Month, which is also for

00:02:11.300 longtime listeners, a culmination of the past year and a bit of episodes. We were looking at

00:02:18.500 the French Revolution, we're looking at all the other revolutions that were happening in the world

00:02:22.560 to really construct an understanding of what was going on in Marie Antoinette's life because she

00:02:27.200 was very much a person of her time and what was happening in her time was not just what was

00:02:31.340 happening at Versailles or in Paris, but it's a much broader story. And today's discussion

00:02:36.040 kind of connects what we've been talking about in the past year with what we're going to be

00:02:41.100 talking about in Marie Antoinette Month because Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, she was, she painted

00:02:46.920 And Marie Antoinette, they knew each other pretty well.

00:02:50.580 And then Elisabeth Vigée-Libran was caught up in the French Revolution.

00:02:55.080 Spoiler, she survived because like everyone else who survived the French Revolution, basically

00:02:59.840 she left and she traveled around.

00:03:02.340 And so she experienced some of what we've been talking about was going on in other countries

00:03:06.000 as well, like England.

00:03:08.360 So I have a special guest on to talk about Elisabeth Vigée-Libran, who is an author,

00:03:13.560 Jordana Pomeroy, who is also the director and CEO of the Courier Museum of Art and former chief

00:03:19.780 curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Art is her thing. So it's, if we're talking

00:03:25.580 about Elisabeth Fijet-Lebrun, who is so well known for her artwork, I really thought this is the

00:03:29.660 perfect person to describe her and to explain the importance of the art and to talk about the

00:03:34.760 meaning in the artwork. Jordana has just written a book that has very recently just come out.

00:03:39.760 that's called Daring the Life and Art of Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun. And I hope you enjoy this

00:03:45.080 conversation with Jordana Pomeroy as we enter Marie Antoinette Month talking about Elizabeth

00:03:50.700 Vigée Le Brun. So I'm joined today by Jordana Pomeroy, the author of Daring the Life and Art

00:04:01.680 of Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun. Am I pronouncing her name correctly? You are. You are. Okay. I'm always,

00:04:08.860 I'm never sure about French, French name pronunciation. Lebrun, Lebrun, but you did a

00:04:15.360 very good job. Okay. I'm Canadian. So I speak French with a Canadian accent. Okay. So tell me

00:04:21.700 actually, first of all, what is your history with her, her life and her art? Do you remember when

00:04:27.480 you first encountered her work? I do. I was the chief curator at the National Museum of Women

00:04:33.640 and the arts in Washington, D.C. for many years. And that is likely the first time I saw her work

00:04:40.460 because we had two works in our collection by her. And in fact, that's eventually how I met

00:04:48.100 the editor because she was an editor at that time at the at the museum many years ago, who said,

00:04:55.080 I know that, you know, Elizabeth Fuget LeBron, because I used to hang around your your tours.

00:05:01.120 And in fact, that was, you know, the first time that, you know, I encountered Vigée Le Brun.

00:05:07.540 But I then only knew her from her paintings and realized she had this incredible autobiography.

00:05:15.160 And that's what really, it makes her an extraordinary artist.

00:05:20.600 And that's where, like, your book is the life and art.

00:05:23.200 And so I think it's a really beautiful combination of, there's so many examples of her work in the book.

00:05:28.060 But her life story is so dramatic.

00:05:31.580 It would make a very, I think, exciting film.

00:05:34.880 Me too. Me too. I've already thought about that.

00:05:39.240 Yeah. So if we start about, I mean, her life became so, just caught up in so many world events.

00:05:45.220 She met so many celebrities and things.

00:05:46.920 But can you explain what her roots were, where her life began?

00:05:50.780 Yeah. I mean, her, you know, like so many women artists, her life began with a parent who was an artist.

00:05:57.420 And her father was a very well-known pastel artist in Paris.

00:06:03.960 Her mother was actually a hairstylist.

00:06:07.300 I always like to make sure I mention, you know, the wives because it's often, and his wife, you know.

00:06:14.380 But in fact, she had a life too.

00:06:16.780 And they probably met, you know, they were in sort of the same circles, social circles.

00:06:22.740 And, uh, so she, uh, was born to them and, you know, was kind of, um, trained from a

00:06:30.120 very early age, right?

00:06:31.220 She, she helped her father, which was in, in his studio and in the memoir, it's very

00:06:37.560 cliche.

00:06:38.120 It's such fond memories of her father.

00:06:40.100 I mean, and then early on, uh, I make, this struck me, there's a lot of social, you know,

00:06:46.600 social history in this book, um, very right away.

00:06:50.220 She was farmed out to a wet nurse.

00:06:52.320 So I have a whole section on wet nursing, which fascinated me.

00:06:55.720 So I figured it would interest everybody else, too, which was the style, the fashion, almost the obligation at the time.

00:07:04.680 Everybody, even the working class, had wet nurses.

00:07:08.580 So royalty had, of course, a lineup of wet nurses in the court.

00:07:13.720 Somebody like Vigée Le Brun, she or Vigée at the time, she would have, you know, gone to a wet nurse that was somewhat outside of Paris.

00:07:22.960 And she came back.

00:07:24.920 She was weaned.

00:07:26.580 You know, I always thought like what she wouldn't know her parents.

00:07:29.120 So it's really, you know, an odd social sort of aspect of society at the time.

00:07:37.480 I mean, odd to us.

00:07:38.560 And then she went to essentially a Catholic school for, you know, she was taught by nuns for girls.

00:07:47.260 And here was also something very interesting, a little point.

00:07:50.980 She says, basically, she just had no ability to sit, right?

00:07:55.520 She had no attention span for catechism and teaching and math.

00:08:00.400 What she wanted to do was scribble.

00:08:01.660 So I thought, you know those kids.

00:08:03.840 Just, you know, the kids in the classroom who want to either want to run around or they want to make art, but they're not really good at focus.

00:08:12.440 That was that's that kid. That's who she was.

00:08:15.400 And that's where I started getting really interested in writing about her because she tells you so much about her just as an individual, as a person that you can relate to.

00:08:23.640 She's completely relatable.

00:08:25.280 No, I'm glad you mentioned that because I found that relatable is the exact right word.

00:08:29.940 Just, you know, I have friends who are very artistically inclined as well.

00:08:32.980 And I remember being in the classroom with them and they're just drawing, like, when you have that artistic sensibility, you can't turn it off. It's there with you all the time. So just picturing her in school and all she wants to do is art. It's such a part of her. It's that like, that's her identity, like from a very early age, this wasn't imposed upon her. This is just, this is who she was.

00:08:52.420 it's who she was it's where she gravitated to she also had the you know the the ability to learn

00:08:59.180 because her father was there and you know had a lot of he even said some or you know allegedly

00:09:05.040 she recalls him saying you are going to be an artist you know one day my daughter um which is

00:09:10.740 really the case for as i said for most women artists frankly until you know the 20th century

00:09:16.120 There usually was some, you know, a father, a brother, a husband who was in some way involved in art.

00:09:24.320 So that gave you credibility and mentoring as well.

00:09:29.420 And so she her father dies at a young age and she gets this stepfather who she hates.

00:09:34.220 Can you talk about that?

00:09:35.780 Yeah. And again, this was with a grain of salt.

00:09:38.140 I read this these passages over and over.

00:09:41.560 So she talks about this man that her mother quickly remarries.

00:09:45.760 He's a jeweler and well off.

00:09:48.800 He's not, you know, he's not, you know, living in poverty.

00:09:52.160 I mean, so she marries, maybe you could say the same class, maybe even slightly above her class, her mother, that is.

00:09:58.580 And but they're moved promptly.

00:10:00.540 You know, they have to move.

00:10:01.560 And you imagine she's in mourning.

00:10:03.700 You know, she still mourns her father.

00:10:05.460 I mean, this, again, is very relatable.

00:10:06.940 and so what she says is that this man starts to wear her father's clothes um and without even

00:10:15.020 altering them so she's so he's like gone into his you know her father's closet and just wearing

00:10:19.980 these clothes i mean is that possible i i suppose i mean clothing wasn't inexpensive maybe he you

00:10:26.860 know did see a jacket or two that appealed to him but you know it's not like he couldn't afford his

00:10:32.580 close. So it may have been a little metaphorical, perhaps a little exaggerated, just to emphasize

00:10:37.660 that she was not happy at this stage in her life. I want to kind of show it's such a

00:10:43.560 demonstration of like, he was ostensibly filling the role of father, but he was not

00:10:49.360 her father. Correct. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, they move into a new neighborhood,

00:10:56.380 a very active neighborhood with shops and, uh, you know, her life is, um, turned upside down.

00:11:03.020 She does recount going to a country estate. Um, this is where she first sees Marie Antoinette,

00:11:09.460 uh, you know, for, I guess it's for the summer. And, uh, she hates it too, because, you know,

00:11:14.780 she's sitting there and she's a city girl and she's stuck out there in the country 0.55

00:11:18.680 with these like hicks who are like shooting off guns and playing with birds. And, you know,

00:11:24.820 she just, you know, she was probably, I've forgotten now, 15 or 16. It's not what you

00:11:29.360 want to be doing. You want to be with your friends and, you know, she's stuck out there

00:11:34.340 with a stepfather and her mother, but it is when she first sees, she leaves eyes on a young

00:11:39.460 Marie Antoinette. Which is, you know, in the movie of this, that would be a good sort of

00:11:45.060 when they first see each other, maybe it'd start the movie with that scene, but we're

00:11:49.960 going to get that movie done. I'll tell you. I think it's, it's such a dramatic story.

00:11:54.820 So, but I like the detail that, you know, she's, she's in mourning, understandably, like her father died and they were very close and to cheer her up, her mother takes her to go look at portrait galleries, basically. And I think that's a, that's a mother who knows her daughter. Like this is, this is going to cheer her up probably.

00:12:10.820 Yeah. So she takes her to Luxembourg to see the Marie de' Medici cycle. And she sort of falls in love with Rubens. That's the first time she's really seen Rubens. And I think it, you know, for her, when she's recounting her life, she has these, as memoirs do, she has this sort of benchmark or these sea change moments.

00:12:35.120 And that's when she realizes, like, this is an incredible artist.

00:12:39.360 You know, I want to be like Rubens.

00:12:41.140 And there are parts of Rubens that she holds on to throughout her life, in her career, including the cover photo of the book.

00:12:52.000 Yeah, because that's when she, I'm skipping ahead, but when she later does go to visit the lowlands, she sees one of Rubens' most famous portraits, the Chapeau de Paix.

00:13:04.600 this, the straw hat, and she imitates it by putting herself in that very, very same, you know,

00:13:10.440 portrait kind of mode. And, and she, so she pays homage to Ruben Steebly in that, in that painting.

00:13:16.800 And that's part of what, I mean, your book, it's, it's designed for ages 13 and up. So it's written

00:13:21.900 at a very sort of accessible, which I appreciate for myself as a person, not, oh, I'm 13 and up,

00:13:27.220 but who doesn't have a, an art history background, like you really explain things like that. So I

00:13:31.400 really understood from the book how, um, for an artist at that time, all the artists would know

00:13:38.280 the references the other artists were doing. And so that she was sort of demonstrating her

00:13:42.240 vocabulary. Like I'm familiar with Rubens and you can tell because I'm taking, so it's, it's

00:13:48.160 interesting to see her, um, her influences. That's part of how she sort of reveals her skill.

00:13:54.540 absolutely yeah yeah yeah um yeah she was always she's a sponge you know she she really um

00:14:03.540 i think she's you know a really wonderful artist because she she does even in her

00:14:09.560 incrementally change her style over the course and she's always making reference to other artists

00:14:15.980 and in some ways i think trying to fit herself into art history that way which really good

00:14:21.300 artists do because in a sense they know how to promote themselves and give themselves that kind

00:14:25.920 of art historical credibility you know they want the street cred right they want to know that they

00:14:30.400 are they are somehow their legacy is going to be recognized and so you know in her you know

00:14:36.900 imitating Susanna Landon by by Rubens she's immediately sort of paying homage but putting

00:14:45.000 herself in that lineage and it's a self-portrait too so it's like this is me i also painted it and

00:14:52.860 here's my references yeah well can you talk about how she started her career as a portrait painter

00:14:58.020 because she was quite young and highly skilled at a young age yeah i mean she because of her

00:15:04.200 father and their father's connections which is always how it's done anyway um she immediately

00:15:09.480 we had portrait commissions. So by 16, she says she was really earning money. And that's a very

00:15:17.320 interesting comment, you know, that, oh, this was another thing that her stepfather was taking her

00:15:22.000 money from her. She also talks about this with her husband. And so I think another, you know,

00:15:26.500 grain of salt. I mean, there may have been this sense of, you know, everybody's pitching in to

00:15:31.820 pay for, you know, just life expenses. But, you know, for her, you know, it was stealing my money.

00:15:37.260 and so she um she is uh earning money she's uh but this is her father is very uh had you know

00:15:45.280 as i said had a very very close circle he was he was very well established so it was really through

00:15:50.420 a lot of probably these connections that she starts um you know like the moment she makes

00:15:56.220 her first portrait she early on she she paints her brother beautiful beautiful painting you can't

00:16:03.200 believe how young she is when she paints this so if you want to say sort of genius and i really i

00:16:09.260 don't love that word but in that sense of early on she's a talented talented young woman uh and

00:16:15.520 it's clear that's going to be her her metier uh it's clear that she's going to have a metier you

00:16:20.800 know that she's going to have a career which is interesting in itself that it almost is like it

00:16:26.800 was no it was pre-dustined like it was never a question in her mind that she would actually have

00:16:31.440 the career well that's not that was not typical at the time oh and for me uh like looking at like

00:16:37.720 the portrait of her brother which you have in your book it is it's so it's so beautiful it's

00:16:41.860 so startling like you I would never have thought that she was as young as she was when she was

00:16:45.760 doing that and she was painting her brother not some you know wealthy patron or something like

00:16:50.380 that like the the portraits that she does like that one is an early one but continuing on like

00:16:56.240 just the way that she can portray fabric and, you know, the way that light, like I could,

00:17:02.140 you could really almost feel what the clothes are like that people are wearing in these portraits.

00:17:06.680 Like it's, it's just, yeah, it's such an expertise. And I guess it's just by using

00:17:10.880 light and the way that she kind of portrays the, you know, the, the fibers, it's just so

00:17:16.160 impressive. And yeah, and that's a really early portrait, but let's talk about her husband who

00:17:19.640 she married to also really young yeah so they move into a uh building that's owned by pierre

00:17:27.840 who is himself a really interesting uh character um a colleague of mine recently wrote about him

00:17:35.960 he's really important he uh was really the first art dealer who was valuing and dutch artists and

00:17:46.340 bringing artists from the lowlands to France and having sort of promoting those as artists that the

00:17:53.460 French should look at and collect. So he wrote, you know, catalogs about these artists. And in a

00:17:59.860 sense, you know, you think about art trends. I mean, the French weren't collecting Dutch art

00:18:05.060 until really somebody like Pierre Lebrun starts that sort of that trend. So consequently, he has

00:18:12.680 a museum of dutch art in his house and he allows this young woman who's now moved into or renting

00:18:18.620 i guess from his her family's renting from him uh you know she he allows her access to all the

00:18:26.180 works of art which must have been a very very attractive proposition for a very curious young

00:18:31.020 woman and she ends up uh marrying him but i according again to her memoir questioning whether

00:18:39.220 she should or shouldn't literally walking to the church it's very dramatic who knows if that really

00:18:43.760 happened but uh the point is made that she really didn't know if she was ready for marriage or

00:18:49.620 marriage to this man but it was clear i mean one thing she did that would have been very difficult

00:18:55.180 is that her mother wanted her to get married for all kinds of reasons and uh so she did and um

00:19:01.760 you know she does say and this also makes her really relatable not only does she you know

00:19:06.080 questioning, should I or should I not marry this man? She sort of comments on his physique.

00:19:14.140 You know, he's like, he's like, really, like, you could just see him saying, well, you know,

00:19:17.520 he's pretty good looking, actually. Yeah, might as well. So I just, I love the way that, you know,

00:19:24.400 you just feel that she's sort of, yeah, I'm like, okay, you know, my mother wants me to marry this

00:19:28.580 guy. He's an art dealer. He seems like he's very good looking. Let's go. So off to church,

00:19:35.780 ago and um and then she uh and she she did have a a miscarriage um and then she has julie who

00:19:44.840 becomes the love of her life and definitely plays a strong role in my book and julie has not been

00:19:51.700 discussed much in other books but i see her as a very very important person of course to her mother

00:20:00.080 and has always talked to, I mean, Elizabeth talks about her throughout her memoir.

00:20:05.420 So Elizabeth had a miscarriage, and then she had Julie.

00:20:09.740 Actually, I may have that wrong.

00:20:11.640 I'm not sure if she had Julie and then had the miscarriage.

00:20:14.000 But in any case, she ends up with one child, Julie,

00:20:17.500 who is a force in her life, a major, major character in her life.

00:20:22.680 And no other art historian focuses on Julie the way I do,

00:20:27.440 partly because I was writing for a young adult audience, but partly because Elizabeth speaks

00:20:32.280 about her so fondly, so admiringly, so lovingly throughout her memoir. And it's clear that Julie

00:20:40.520 played a strong role in her mother's life. So I spend a lot of time talking about Julie.

00:20:46.080 So she's married. She's got Julie. She's her tutoring. She hates it. She wants to just paint.

00:20:54.460 um what's what's the next big big thing that happens with her well the next big thing that

00:21:01.340 happens to her is that she um well she meets marie antoinette um i mean she's still young

00:21:08.100 marie antoinette is young they're pretty much the same age in fact and uh she's invited to the court

00:21:14.340 to paint her um and there's again very relatable and interesting uh anecdote about elizabeth was

00:21:21.880 was pregnant at the time maybe maybe early on well but you could tell i suppose and she drops

00:21:28.160 her paints and the queen bends down to pick them up for her and says you know and there's this a

00:21:34.300 comment that they they sort of share this that they that she recognizes that that you know she's

00:21:40.020 not feeling well she drops her paints and then and to have the queen sort of lean down and pick

00:21:45.140 them up as it was just a you know so out of protocol and so it gives you a sense that you

00:21:51.820 know while they may not have been best buddies they were they were close and she paints the

00:21:57.800 queen 18 times I mean she ends up being kind of the the chief promoter marketer of Marie Antoinette

00:22:05.320 through her paintings you know some did better than others some were actually really there was

00:22:11.340 one painting of marie antoinette and she's wearing a very a white chemise we would love it right we

00:22:17.660 think oh look at this beautiful she's wearing this you know it was this lovely sort of springy

00:22:23.300 summery outfit and it was scandalous it was considered really uncouth for the queen to be

00:22:31.860 wearing this very relaxed look so the next painting she paints her in this much more rigid fashion

00:22:38.720 with her children around her is sort of a more traditional composition that you might find in

00:22:45.040 the renaissance of the Madonna and child. And it's really too late. The fact is that the monarchy is,

00:22:51.220 is, you know, this is already in play, the toppling of the monarchy. And so in a sense,

00:22:58.500 these are kind of a little bit, a little bit too late in the day to try to save,

00:23:04.040 save the queen or save the monarchy but she did her best and she remained a monarchist throughout

00:23:09.740 her life um and she makes it very clear that when she flees paris in 1789 that she's doing so under

00:23:18.220 duress um she's fearful of her life of julie's life and she leaves behind her um her husband who

00:23:27.980 subsequently divorces her but i think it was really more matter an exit like a matter of

00:23:34.040 uh, just to separate himself from her. And, uh, you know, so it's like he wouldn't be seen as

00:23:40.540 somebody who should be executed. And, um, so she, she really goes under the cover of night

00:23:46.520 with Julie and Julie's governess. They leave, they leave Paris. So it's, it's, it's, I'm making

00:23:52.340 it sort of quick, but she really does have this wonderful, I, you know, as close as you can be

00:23:57.140 to a queen, his relationship with Marie Antoinette, um, that, you know, was, was personal.

00:24:04.040 I will be doing an episode about Marie Antoinette in a bit.

00:24:06.060 And I do think that Vigée Le Brun, like these are such iconic, famous images of her.

00:24:11.760 And at that time, that's, it was part of the, I want to say, like public relations, you know, for the royal family to have these portraits and how you choose to present yourself.

00:24:20.640 And like you said, when she presented herself in this simple chemise, maybe they were trying to be like, look, she's relatable.

00:24:27.540 And it's like, no, she's not.

00:24:29.400 Yes.

00:24:29.960 Yeah.

00:24:30.860 Right.

00:24:31.180 Right. And we don't care because, you know, you already have, you know, the the anti monarchists who are, you know, they're they're gaining in force.

00:24:41.660 So making her look like, yeah, just another just a woman that you might have tea with is not actually accurate.

00:24:51.340 But those who were strong monarchists equally saw it as just a scandal to portray their queen in such a casual manner.

00:24:59.540 And she's got sort of, I think in your book, you talk about the first time she painted

00:25:02.660 Marie Antoinette, like Rose Bertin is there, who is Marie Antoinette's kind of like clothier.

00:25:07.120 Like she's got sort of a whole, you imagine like people getting ready for the Academy

00:25:10.700 Awards, you know, there's a whole team around her.

00:25:12.860 It's like, let's create this look.

00:25:14.820 And Vigée Le Brun was such a, became such a crucial part of that, of presenting her

00:25:18.960 in this different way.

00:25:19.960 But I mean, no portrait was going to change the tide of what was happening in culture

00:25:24.500 there.

00:25:26.600 Right, exactly.

00:25:27.500 And, uh, and that's, you know, I mean, but to, to, to the point that her portraits often

00:25:33.660 were this, you know, they were portrayals of the way people want to promote themselves

00:25:39.120 or see themselves.

00:25:40.760 So when I, we were asking when I was first introduced to Elizabeth Vigie LeBron's work,

00:25:47.020 I saw her, or the way I would talk about her is somebody who made you look good, like a

00:25:51.680 kind of early Photoshop.

00:25:52.840 stop um you know there is a sort of similarity among her works especially of men you know the

00:25:59.320 there i must say the very few portraits i like you'll notice the very few portraits of men in

00:26:03.880 general that she painted but very few in my book they're not all that interesting a lot of the men

00:26:09.820 are wearing you know their jackets and their uh their their different medals and it's all about

00:26:16.180 their social status and it is too for the women but the women come across to me more interesting

00:26:21.480 because their outfits are so fascinating but there's often like they're all sort of you know 0.99

00:26:26.300 very they're very attractive um you know and there's uh um i think there's she got that she

00:26:33.540 understood how people want to be seen that it wasn't a time that you want to make that of

00:26:39.360 naturalism of making somebody look like the way they actually are capturing some inner reality

00:26:45.320 it was really what the eye sees so she would drape her sitters in uh she actually sort of

00:26:54.300 seemed to have like a you know magic bag of tricks and she would have these special draperies and 0.99

00:27:00.980 turbans and things that were very elegant and flowed so that you know it also made her a 1.00

00:27:07.160 virtuosa you could see her virtuosa painting um but they made women look elegant and probably

00:27:13.620 quite beautiful. I find that really interesting too like the Marie Antoinette the the only time

00:27:19.520 she was painted by Vigée Le Brun I think that where she's not looking like how we imagine Marie

00:27:23.860 Antoinette with like the extremely complicated dress and everything was that one the scandalous

00:27:28.980 portrayal in the chemise but so many of the other portraits like the ones you include in the book

00:27:33.080 are just like you described it's kind of people draped in fabric almost looking

00:27:36.920 like people from ancient Greece or Rome or something like she was really trying to

00:27:41.280 which to me now seems like a really timeless sort of portraiture where Marie Antoinette is so much

00:27:47.580 in a time and a place because of the specificity of these gowns that she's wearing. So let's talk

00:27:54.100 about her, because in terms of that, she goes traveling and I'm just looking right now at my

00:27:59.820 computer at the picture of Lady Hamilton as the Cumaean Sybil, which becomes kind of her calling

00:28:06.340 card. Can you talk about, she's traveling around Europe, like she leaves Paris and she travels

00:28:10.620 around and she starts taking commissions. She starts painting people in other cities.

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00:30:57.960 How does that all play out?

00:30:59.900 well so you know europe even though uh europe is a tight network western europe i should say

00:31:07.560 a tight network of of monarchies and they're all somehow related to each other one after the other

00:31:13.380 so that one of the sisters of marie antoinette is uh the ruler naples so it's a logical place

00:31:20.240 for her to to head toward um and and seek you know seek new commissions now when she leaves paris

00:31:28.360 This is the sort of interesting part is, you know, she is definitely leaving, as I said, under duress.

00:31:34.880 She leaves under the cover of darkness and it's she leaves past the Bastille.

00:31:40.520 So she recalls like, you know, it's very dramatic, you know, again, great for the movie.

00:31:47.500 And she she's she's sitting in the two members in a carriage with some stinky kind of guy.

00:31:54.940 like she's sharing it's not exactly like a luxurious ride um and she she heads out and

00:32:01.520 she's they stop in Lyon and so I mean the other thing that is important to know about France at

00:32:07.200 the time is France itself is pretty disconnected I mean Paris is over there what's going on in

00:32:12.060 Paris is is really really far away from what's going on outside of Paris and in Lyon you know

00:32:18.380 news does not travel fast so you know the minute you get out you're you're kind of safer right

00:32:25.040 So this is, you know, it's not World War II.

00:32:27.540 You know, people are, news travels slowly, and she sort of stops in Lyon.

00:32:33.820 And then you've got to imagine these remarkably long carriage rides going over the Alps.

00:32:39.780 And then she ends up in northern Italy.

00:32:43.660 And she's always taken in by artist friends who know her.

00:32:47.320 So it tells you a lot about her reputation.

00:32:49.160 her reputation by her 30s. She was really well known throughout Western Europe. So she has

00:32:55.300 artist friends who are teaching French, I should say, but they're teaching in like the academies

00:33:00.460 in Italy. And she and her daughter are really taken in warmly. And this happens throughout

00:33:06.140 her life. You know, she has friends all over the place. And she sometimes even leaves a portrait

00:33:11.180 or two, you know, as a thank you. And she gets to Rome. One of the highlights is she meets Angelica

00:33:17.740 Kaufman, who is one of the few other women artists, I think maybe the only one that she

00:33:23.220 mentions in her autobiography, as again, if you think about that, situating yourself,

00:33:29.880 your legacy, situating yourself in art history, Angelica Kaufman was somebody she admired

00:33:34.660 greatly.

00:33:35.620 So she does talk about meeting her in Rome.

00:33:39.060 And so while she's in exile, it's not an unhappy exile.

00:33:45.480 You know, she's not an alba.

00:33:46.820 She's not in prison.

00:33:47.740 And in fact, some ways she's finding herself in the depths and steeped in art, kind of art that she had studied, you know, she had heard about, probably saw prints of, you know, murals and frescoes and paintings.

00:34:05.700 So Cuman Sybil is, you know, a great example. So she she's sort of looking at Raphael. She's looking at Michelangelo. And then she's decided, like, I'm going to paint a portrait, you know, with with this reference.

00:34:20.400 so that's I think the important part is that she's sort of demonstrating her that she's a

00:34:27.720 virtuosa that she is capable of of painting like Michelangelo like Raphael and and in a sense you

00:34:36.620 know she's I think that's what she sort of carries on in a lot of her future portraits of women is

00:34:44.220 that they are painted in, in myth as mythological figures, you know, and, and I should also back up

00:34:51.600 and say that, you know, women were prohibited from painting the nude. So it put them on a kind

00:34:57.720 of low rank, low ranks, right? So, you know, when I was a curator, you know, at the Women's Museum,

00:35:03.800 sometimes I was faced with the idea and I was sort of the curator of more historical art with

00:35:09.380 that a lot of still life, a lot of still life in portraits.

00:35:14.200 And I was like, that's a lot.

00:35:15.500 Like who wants to walk into a whole, you know, exhibition of portraits

00:35:19.800 so that like a better narrative than this. 1.00

00:35:21.960 But that was where women were kept because they were not accepted. 1.00

00:35:26.060 They couldn't paint the figure. 1.00

00:35:28.060 They weren't allowed, you know, or at least publicly or formally training in anatomy.

00:35:33.940 um so they very few women attempted classical classical painting um one the one of the few 1.00

00:35:41.580 was angelica kaufman that's why she was so remarkable angelica kaufman because she painted 0.97

00:35:47.480 mythology she painted classical scenes um just which was entirely unusual so she so the fact 0.76

00:35:54.860 that that then um vijay lebron elizabeth makes these little footsteps these little baby steps

00:36:00.980 toward that with the kumayan symbol is that's when that starts and she's sort of saying you

00:36:06.500 know what i guess angelica did it i can do it too and and this kumayan symbol is so near to

00:36:13.260 near and dear to her heart that she produces uh two of them and one of them becomes her calling

00:36:18.300 card and she carries it around you know because she because people will recognize the reference

00:36:24.260 most people that she's trying to woo or get commissions from will recognize that reference

00:36:30.440 and say, wow, that's pretty impressive. You know, I want a painting by this person.

00:36:35.120 I thought that was so interesting because yeah, in an era before, you know, photography or anything,

00:36:39.420 she just traveled around with this beautiful portrait she had made. So when someone says

00:36:43.400 like, oh, why should I hire you to paint my portrait? She can, ta-da. Well, here's one that

00:36:47.340 I did. Like just the idea that she's carrying this around with her, I thought was really

00:36:51.100 interesting. Can you imagine? Yeah. I know. And it's also funny because one thing I thought about

00:36:57.680 a lot was how she got around she was in a carriage uh and unless you know again not luxury i mean it 0.99

00:37:05.500 is you know the the time she doesn't have like shocks on the carriage she's on rutted roads

00:37:11.560 now she's carrying a painting around um i mean i just can't even like picture it you know these

00:37:17.420 horses like plodding along hundreds of miles and she's sitting at this like i'm seeing about her

00:37:23.440 spine and you know like oh my god you know you know it's it's tough it's not this is not easy

00:37:30.480 travel i mean she's going around europe she's meeting every celebrity of the time because

00:37:36.720 she's famous um and well as a portrait artist she's painting portraits of name after name that

00:37:42.980 i recognize the people who she encounters but i want to skip ahead to where she winds up in russia

00:37:47.200 because that's an interesting era of her life.

00:37:50.780 So she was invited there, right?

00:37:53.700 Yeah, Catherine the Great invited Elizabeth to St. Petersburg.

00:37:59.900 And Catherine the Great is, of course, you know, a fascinating character.

00:38:05.800 I'm sure you know a lot about her.

00:38:07.700 She really wanted to bring Russia, which is huge,

00:38:13.000 into a more European mode and less of an Eastern mode in many, many ways.

00:38:19.340 She collected, collected voraciously.

00:38:21.640 She collected everything from gems to books to coins to people.

00:38:27.640 And one of the people she collected was Elizabeth Fichette Le Brun.

00:38:31.020 So she invited her to really teach artists of her court and of her domain

00:38:36.680 how to paint portraits, but more in a Western style.

00:38:42.120 And so I think Elizabeth takes up the opportunity for two reasons.

00:38:47.600 One is, I mean, Catherine the Great's reputation was the way it is now.

00:38:52.200 I mean, everybody knew her.

00:38:53.420 So that was a huge honor.

00:38:56.100 And the second was money.

00:38:57.320 You know, she knew she would make a lot of money by going to Russia.

00:39:01.400 So she sets off with Julie on a crazy, crazy long carriage ride, which, you know, takes months.

00:39:10.800 I mean, you know, it's three months or something.

00:39:13.200 She even talks about not just rutted roads, but pure sand, and they have to get out and walk.

00:39:22.100 So this is not fun.

00:39:24.300 So when she gets to St. Petersburg, she's oohing and aahing and looking at the architecture because it is really a beautiful city.

00:39:32.360 And it's like the minute she gets there, Catherine asks her to come to meet her.

00:39:39.440 and she's not even dressed i mean she doesn't have what she thinks she's going to wear so she

00:39:45.060 sort of shows up in some modest outfit and she forgets the protocol of meeting you know the

00:39:53.300 this most powerful monarch um and uh and she does everything wrong you know what i mean she feels

00:40:00.580 like kind of like uh you know what did i do you know she sort of recollects that this was a moment

00:40:05.820 which is being this incredible woman and she forgets how to, how to honor her. And, and yet

00:40:11.780 again, it seems not to matter all that much, just like, you know, when, when Marie Antoinette picked

00:40:17.040 up her paints, you know, I mean, she's, you know, this is the way she's thinking about herself,

00:40:21.880 again, very relatable, almost funny. And then she never paints Catherine the Great. Catherine

00:40:27.800 the Great actually died just a few months after Elizabeth arrived. She does paint her granddaughters 0.60

00:40:34.260 And it's a beautiful, beautiful painting that had, uh, there were some issues around it.

00:40:39.480 Um, the two granddaughters are, they, they hold a cameo with their, with their grandmother.

00:40:45.780 Uh, she painted them initially with bare arms and that was considered scandalous.

00:40:50.420 So she took the painting back and put sleeves on the girls. 0.92

00:40:54.560 Um, so, you know, and then she sort of establishes herself in the court and not only that in

00:40:59.880 the Academy in St. Petersburg.

00:41:01.740 and in fact there's still there's a coin that's struck in her honor um that's given uh out to

00:41:08.500 to a painter it's obviously uh you know some sort of a paid honorarium um and the fact is that she

00:41:17.600 just has a lot of commissions she knows a lot of people because there's a there's kind of a

00:41:22.840 pipeline a very big pipeline of of wealthy aristocrats you know and others who are going

00:41:30.040 between russia namely mostly saint petersburg and paris so it is a lot of parisian influence

00:41:37.500 a lot of french influence in in russia and then a lot of russians living in in paris so they're

00:41:43.460 going back and forth so there's you know this the fact she didn't have a language barrier really

00:41:48.600 there's be everybody speaks french she's um uh well recognized a lot of french who are there

00:41:55.000 in in st petersburg and it's in st petersburg that julie gets married right yes so this is

00:42:04.800 one of these really sad sad moments of the autobiography julie meets um this you know

00:42:13.140 kind of a long story you can get my book and read it but it's uh it's a story about you know again

00:42:18.860 kind of relatable she meets a much older man who probably sees her as somebody with money and you

00:42:27.300 know means um and this julie is very naive she's been protected by her mother as mothers do um and

00:42:35.700 she's uh she's really taken by this man and uh much against her better judgment uh elizabeth

00:42:44.280 agrees to the marriage and the dowry and, you know, it's all very, she's very reluctant about

00:42:52.980 this and leaves behind her daughter when she eventually does leave St. Petersburg to return

00:42:59.440 to Paris when she gets off the list of exiles and she's allowed back in. She has to leave her

00:43:05.660 daughter behind. And I think it's way more, she expresses way more than just sadness about leaving

00:43:11.100 her daughter i think she feels like she's leaving her daughter in a just what's a bad situation

00:43:15.460 uh something that's not going to be a happy marriage and as it proves out it's not a happy

00:43:21.780 marriage yeah so i'll leave it at that yeah no get all the details in the book um but yeah just

00:43:28.360 because you have julie is such a such a character in your book um just when you got to that part i

00:43:33.080 didn't know this part of her life story it's just like oh you know again relatable it feels

00:43:38.200 contemporary like how many mothers look at their daughters oh you're dating that guy you're marrying

00:43:44.980 that guy just like but daughters don't listen and it's kind of yeah it feels very contemporary

00:43:50.720 but if we yeah it's a old story yeah but if we i mean she travels a lot and you get into all of

00:43:58.960 this in your book as well she paints lots of people including germaine de stael who we did

00:44:03.460 an episode about a few weeks ago, who is painted in the, I think they encounter each other in

00:44:08.800 Switzerland. She paints Germaine as the main character of one of her novels. And I talked

00:44:15.080 about in the podcast then about how Germaine's novels are highly autobiographical. So I just

00:44:19.020 like that detail. Yeah, it's Corinne. Oh, going back to Julie, one thing that was very interesting

00:44:26.460 is that you realize that Elizabeth was giving her daughter an education that girls just didn't get

00:44:33.340 at the time certainly she didn't you know i was telling you she didn't want to learn catechism

00:44:37.160 and math so her her daughter is uh you know fluent in four languages probably more she knows how to

00:44:44.360 paint draw write she's always proclaiming like julie's writing is remarkable her observations

00:44:50.700 you know she's so proud of julie you know her observations she she uh she actually recollects

00:44:57.780 certain things that her young daughter said along the way, um, about the moonlight and about the

00:45:03.600 landscape. And, uh, she's learning history and, you know, she's, she's just getting these life

00:45:09.740 lessons that, you know, most, you know, boys and girls didn't, didn't have. So she was,

00:45:16.140 you know, really was a remarkable girl. And in some ways I could see why Elizabeth wanted her

00:45:21.160 to marry a remarkable man. And the man wasn't remarkable. He was remarkable because he was

00:45:26.860 probably a scoundrel so you know and taking advantage of a very young and naive girl

00:45:32.580 um so yeah she she does go back without her daughter and she is she's bereft she's absolutely

00:45:40.200 bereft um but she goes back and she makes a life again and it's funny because her now ex-husband

00:45:47.700 has decorated the house that she's going to go occupy uh she doesn't speak well of him either

00:45:55.100 you know that you know he was stealing her money and all this but i don't know about this you know

00:46:00.340 i think i will tell you one thing i don't think she was the best businesswoman i i think so when

00:46:06.580 she goes to russia she gets paid in jewels which was if you think about it all the different

00:46:11.300 currencies it was just better to get paid in you know metal right gold and jewels and um and so

00:46:17.760 that was the that was the uh uh what would you call it like the euro right so um she she heads 0.86

00:46:26.340 back in on in a carriage with her legs draped over a trunk which has contains all her you know 0.98

00:46:34.600 all her payment that she's earned uh diamonds and such and and one of the points i make is she makes

00:46:41.000 the saint she she paints a self-portrait in saint petersburg and she's wearing this massive diamond

00:46:46.880 which is blingy and says a lot about her you know i have made it i've made this like i've made so

00:46:54.080 much money here this is this is what i'm worth i i got paid in this massive diamond and it's

00:47:00.280 beautifully painted by the way because she catches all the light and the you know you just you feel

00:47:05.760 the weight of it and she comes back to paris with her worldly goods her husband her ex-husband has

00:47:12.040 made a comfortable situation for her as has her nieces her nieces are very important in her life

00:47:18.220 too she sort of loses her daughter and gains her nieces um and then she's got the travel bug i mean

00:47:25.720 this is the thing is that this exile just exposed her to so many first she her first trip abroad was

00:47:31.720 with her husband on honeymoon then she is in exile then she comes back and she really wants to get

00:47:37.600 out again she travels to england she travels to london she makes some portraits there she comes

00:47:42.800 back she travels to switzerland multiple times and during one of those times she meets uh madame

00:47:48.460 who is an exile and hates napoleon is ranting against napoleon so she's i guess probably is

00:47:57.780 i don't know asked to leave let's say or leaves in her own accord i'm not sure um but she has

00:48:03.300 she has a, you know, her, um, uh, how, you know, she has a mansion or a chateau in, in,

00:48:11.500 in Switzerland and she paints her, but I will tell you, I don't think that her first attempt

00:48:19.240 was very successful. Um, the, the sitter was highly unhappy with the way she looked in it.

00:48:27.020 So she had to make another go at it.

00:48:29.200 And the second result was, was, was better received.

00:48:34.240 So she is, yeah, she's painted, as you point out, as Corinne and inspired by one of her best known novels, Corinne or Italy.

00:48:44.820 So that just, that tracks with what I've learned about Madame de Stael, which is just that she, she was not known as a great beauty.

00:48:54.180 She was not known as being particularly well-dressed.

00:48:56.480 so but maybe she thought she was and so if vijay lebron is kind of painting what she saw it's like

00:49:02.280 no paint what i think i look like don't paint what i look like yeah and then i think she just

00:49:07.720 takes another road altogether which i'm gonna paint you as one of your characters and that'll

00:49:11.560 just make it a lot easier and i'm gonna put you in a tunic and you'll look very you know you know

00:49:16.620 roman and you're gonna hold a liar and we'll do the best we can with what you've got and um you 0.77

00:49:24.000 know she does talk about this is very funny in naples there's also a queen one of the um members

00:49:30.460 of the monarchy who's also quite homely and she she talks about that because she she has an eye

00:49:37.340 for beauty and now she's sort of faced with trying to make somebody look pretty who just really isn't

00:49:42.120 and you know she does her best she does her best so with uh yes with i want to learn i'm gonna i'm

00:49:48.680 very curious about madame distille because she was such an influential writer so much so that 0.63

00:49:53.840 napoleon does ask her to you know oh yeah get out of here you know we don't need rabble kicked out 0.94

00:50:00.120 of paris several times one time she was already in exile from paris and then she wrote another 0.97

00:50:05.240 book and then napoleon was so mad he he like re-exiled her even though she was already in

00:50:09.480 exile because he was so mad it's just like how bad you have to be to be set in exile when you're

00:50:14.420 already in exile um but she double exile yeah yes it's she's put in kind of house arrest but

00:50:20.620 so the so sort of the final act of vijay lebrun's life she how to how does her julie comes back

00:50:28.760 after the failed marriage julie does come back very briefly with the husband but she's sick

00:50:37.820 and this is sort of really also one of the saddest saddest parts she obviously has something

00:50:44.160 either, you know, I was tempted as a syphilis. Her face is ravaged. Her mother comes. So she

00:50:53.000 doesn't, they're not close anymore. She learns that Judy's come back. She finally goes visits

00:50:58.000 her when Judy's on her deathbed. Her face is ravaged. So, you know, again, somebody who is

00:51:04.240 not only her daughter, but somebody, you know, her daughter was very pretty and now her face is

00:51:08.740 Right. So I think it's either syphilis is most likely perhaps smallpox, but it's and then she dies shortly thereafter.

00:51:17.860 And she really writes this incredible eulogy to a daughter in the autobiography, but also feels really sad for herself.

00:51:25.280 You know, like what mother losing a daughter is never, never easy.

00:51:30.400 And her nieces then start to play much more of a role in her life as a they're the ones who get her to write.

00:51:38.740 And maybe it was a way, not only of recording her remarkable life, but maybe she was grieving still, you know.

00:51:44.820 But in any case, they took her under their wing.

00:51:47.660 They ended up being people who, one of them actually was sort of, I guess, an executor of her estate and managed to get works into the Louvre and other collections.

00:51:58.400 So took care of her aunt's effects.

00:52:02.560 uh but the most important thing i think they did well getting works in the louis is nice but

00:52:07.660 is putting out this um this suggesting to write this which again um i don't know of other examples

00:52:16.060 of you know men or women really writing this this much you know and it's also written in a very

00:52:22.360 i i urge readers to read it because it's not written for academics it's just written by

00:52:28.000 this woman who's having this incredible journey and if you know anybody's interested in 18th

00:52:32.000 century European history. It's a great read. And that's what they do for her. They find a publisher

00:52:38.140 and she, in 1835, she prints 1,500 copies of her memoir, which was released in installments,

00:52:47.240 as was typical at the time. Where was she when she died and where was she buried? And is there

00:52:52.440 a grave people can visit? You know, I haven't visited her grave and it's outside of Paris.

00:52:59.620 uh it's you know kind of on my list to do one day but i i haven't done it she was living outside of

00:53:06.780 paris in fact there was yet another you know napoleon kept sort of talking about x being

00:53:12.040 twice exiled i mean napoleon also right so napoleon comes back and he's trying that's what

00:53:18.160 you know he meets his waterloo but there is this moment where she has this uh she's in a town called

00:53:23.960 Lucien and that's where which is uh five miles sort of outside of Paris there are these Prussian

00:53:31.380 troops that that invade Lucien one night I mean it's very very scary so you know she's been through

00:53:37.660 a lot right and she's she's constantly up against something so here she is they wreak havoc on the

00:53:43.140 town they leave Lucien and uh and then all this you know stuff happens like uh they defeat Napoleon

00:53:49.720 Louis XVIII ascends to the throne

00:53:54.020 and Elizabeth goes to join the public to see the new king

00:53:58.700 and she talks about Louis XVIII approaching her

00:54:04.020 and she says he approached no other woman

00:54:07.220 so she's still very much, you know, very respected

00:54:11.100 even by Napoleon

00:54:12.160 so that's interesting, right?

00:54:15.680 Because she doesn't like Napoleon

00:54:16.780 you know, think about it, right?

00:54:18.280 She, her, her friend, she was friends with the previous, with the monarchy, with the previous government, but they're very respectful of her. She's just, she's sort of, despite herself, you know, makes sort of like a, you know, like, you know, Napoleon and his family, but, you know, she recognizes, well, he's the man in charge now. So she, she sort of is courteous toward him. So I think she is buried out in Lucien.

00:54:44.900 You know, there's so many times I talk about women on this podcast and it's like, no one knows where she's buried or like, yeah, her grave was destroyed in the French Revolution or whatever. So I'm glad there is actually a place. Yeah. For once.

00:54:57.920 Yeah. Yeah, there is. There is. And that should be on all of our lists to go and see. But I haven't been back to Paris since I finished this book. So that'll be on my list.

00:55:07.100 Just as sort of like a wrap up, final question. Do you think she is so well known today because the memoir exists? Or is it because of the because she painted Marie Antoinette? Like, why do you think her name still stands today?

00:55:24.120 yeah i think it was her association with marie antoinette i mean there were many many women

00:55:31.520 painters and that's something that's sort of rather um you know i would say been been

00:55:38.160 highlighted in recent scholarship she was not you know one of a few i mean you you know there

00:55:45.300 was Adelaide Le Billiard, very few, you know, women in the Academy Royale. But in other academies, 0.92

00:55:54.600 there were women and they were working and they were professional. So when you think about it,

00:56:00.800 though, they weren't painting the queen. And so I think, you know, really that sort of sets her

00:56:06.440 apart. Her constant commissions coming from different royalty also sets her apart. And the

00:56:13.600 fact that she, her niece puts her work in the Louvre, that also sets her apart. Her work was

00:56:20.680 never authored as somebody else's work, which is sometimes what happens. And yes, the autobiography

00:56:27.320 sets her apart too, because it is really hard to find out information, even in the archives and a

00:56:34.540 lot of these women artists, you know, they didn't leave behind memoirs, you know, maybe there's a

00:56:39.200 letter or two again this autobiography is like many it's it's not necessarily accurate you know

00:56:45.740 in this um but you know and it does paint herself as you know kind of really remarkable so you know

00:56:53.740 you have to sort of understand this you know she's seeing herself in a certain light that she's

00:57:00.600 kind of great and and i i do admire her for that because that is something that artists need to do

00:57:05.600 they need to sort of see themselves they have to be immodest and she's completely immodest

00:57:10.740 she's an immodest woman and then she you know she's proud of what she's done uh and and she 0.99

00:57:16.560 doesn't you know call herself a woman artist and in fact she doesn't really talk about challenges 0.99

00:57:20.820 that she might have encountered because of her sex none at all you know she seems to have been

00:57:27.540 really really uh well received by men by women just she was kind of unto herself which is

00:57:34.860 i told you before like i've done an episode before where i spoke with bridget quinn about

00:57:39.200 adelaide lebi goyard and one of the issues with her legacy is that she so often painted in pastels

00:57:46.900 which can be hard to through the years like it's just not a unless it's under glass like it's hard

00:57:54.920 for those paintings to be sort of maintained whereas vijay lebrun she was painting in what

00:57:59.680 was she painting it was she painting in oils or yeah oils and uh sometimes on on on panel and

00:58:06.940 sometimes on canvas but you're right there's you know pastels are difficult to maintain they they're

00:58:13.380 very fragile um and uh they don't travel well yeah you couldn't travel around with your calling card

00:58:20.540 if it's made of pastels i guess no not so much he really painted i mean rosalba carriera was a

00:58:27.440 great pastelist and you know also in the academy royale but uh we you know she's yeah the harder

00:58:34.540 to get to know because these works are i'd say more ephemeral and um you know vijan lebron painted

00:58:42.360 over 800 paintings that's a lot and and you see them throughout europe and you know if once you

00:58:49.360 become aware of these artists and you start looking for them you know pretty much in every

00:58:53.780 museum. And the Met has a lot in New York. I don't know about Canada. I've sort of

00:58:59.460 scoured the world. There are a couple in Tokyo that were collected by a private collector,

00:59:09.240 but most remain in France, but many throughout the U.S. as well.

00:59:13.700 And actually, that's really good information too. If people, like it's now on my bucket list,

00:59:18.020 I would like to see one of these paintings in person. So the Met would be a place where people

00:59:22.040 could, American listeners could maybe go to see some of her work.

00:59:25.780 Yes.

00:59:26.360 Uh, the Met and the Louvre.

00:59:27.880 I mean, they're, they're the two, two major, I was, I think there are at least five on

00:59:33.580 view the last I looked, along with a lot of, a number of other women artists from, from

00:59:38.460 the era.

00:59:39.560 Um, uh, so yeah, this, I think that's really what sort of makes her a standout is, is that

00:59:46.920 You sort of see this life that was maybe not the one that we imagine 18th century women had.

00:59:56.460 We imagine them as more stayed under the protection of a man.

01:00:01.980 And she sort of defied all these conventions.

01:00:07.440 And as I said, even her lack of modesty, I think that sort of defines her, puts her in a very different light.

01:00:15.100 I think from early on, she had a great sense of self-confidence in her talents.

01:00:21.220 And she's also funny.

01:00:22.140 She talks about how she was sort of like a swan, sort of an ugly duckling as a young girl.

01:00:27.420 And then she also emerges as a rather attractive swan.

01:00:31.340 And she talks about walking through, you know, the jardin, you know, with her friend and men looking at them and her mother kind of saying, no, no, no, no, no.

01:00:42.940 You know, it's a, it's a whole flirtation, you know, and, and, uh, you know, so those

01:00:48.220 kind of moments is what really brings her to life and makes her real for me and for

01:00:54.760 hopefully for my readers too.

01:00:57.060 Yeah, no, and exactly.

01:00:58.320 And I do, you know, everybody should read your book, obviously.

01:01:01.720 I think it does really present her life in a really understandable way.

01:01:05.980 Like, like you were saying about like the breastfeeding and stuff, like when something

01:01:08.700 comes up that's so different from life now, you have these little sort of asides in the

01:01:12.440 book where you kind of explain what's going on or when she meets a famous person you explain oh

01:01:16.580 here's who this was so I really it's like you're holding my hand throughout the book explaining all

01:01:20.940 these things and so I appreciated it I think it's really a great introduction to her life and story

01:01:25.560 for people of all ages oh thank you and I did try you know to do the thing that we all do which is

01:01:32.140 we look at paintings even those of us who are art historians and say what is that thing that

01:01:37.160 she's wearing or you know what I want to know more about the ring or what tell me about that

01:01:42.400 scarf you know art historians can we kind of like lose sometimes the interest of the audience by

01:01:48.040 talking in sort of these large sort of larger terms when really what we want to know is why

01:01:53.600 the hair is powdered gray and and you know tell me more about that that funny looking thing in

01:01:59.920 the corner and that's where I started to get more interested in uh how we run museums and what it is

01:02:06.520 that we're really trying to get people interested in.

01:02:08.880 And Vigée Le Brun, you can pick up a lot of detail

01:02:11.120 about everyday life for a certain echelon of society.

01:02:15.720 Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

01:02:18.100 I really appreciate this conversation.

01:02:20.140 And this has been a real pleasure.

01:02:21.600 Thank you for having me.

01:02:27.280 So again, Jordana's book is called Daring,

01:02:30.260 The Life and Art of Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun.

01:02:33.500 It's a beautiful book.

01:02:34.600 And I think I said this in the episode, but there's so many pictures throughout.

01:02:38.840 And that's so important because you can get so much understanding of what Elizabeth was

01:02:42.880 thinking and what she was up to and what was happening in the world based on what her

01:02:46.140 portraits look like.

01:02:47.600 And also they're just beautiful paintings and art was, that was how she expressed herself.

01:02:51.960 And so it's such a good thing to be able to see so many pictures all in one book.

01:02:55.200 It's a beautiful book, super recommended.

01:02:57.640 Everybody should pick up a copy.

01:02:58.860 another book you should pick up a copy of my book that's coming out in february 2026 that's right

01:03:05.900 your girl is an author or i will be when my book is published in february so my book is called rebel

01:03:11.980 of the regency the scandal saga of caroline of brunswick britain's uncrowned queen it is a

01:03:18.020 biography of a woman who lived you know what a bit simultaneous with elizabeth vigé lebrun

01:03:23.520 but she spent her life first in Germany and then in England. And then she, you know what,

01:03:29.260 like Elizabeth Fijet-Libro traveled around. They knew they had a lot of people they knew in common.

01:03:33.200 Anyway, Carolina Brunswick was a messy bitch and I adore her. She is an icon to me. She is one of 1.00

01:03:41.200 the least well-known and least well-regarded of the consorts of the British monarchy. And we're

01:03:47.840 going to, we're going to change that. We're going to make our girl famous. So my book comes out next

01:03:52.480 year. And if you're like, great, I'll buy it next year. Thank you. Thank you for thinking that

01:03:57.420 people who thought that, but if you pre-order it now, which is a thing you can do where you can

01:04:02.600 just go into any online website in North America that sells books and you can just like buy it

01:04:08.540 basically. And just when it actually is published, then you'll get it. So you can buy it ahead of

01:04:12.720 time. You know, like getting a movie ticket for a movie that doesn't come up for a while. You can

01:04:16.340 also go to your local independent bookstore and do the same thing. Just say, I want to pre-order

01:04:19.740 Rebel of the Regency by Ann Foster. And if you do that, that's cool. And I'd appreciate it.

01:04:24.740 And as a special thank you to show how much I appreciate it, I'm giving away some treats.

01:04:29.280 So if you pre-order my book and then share the receipt with me at rebeloftheregency.com,

01:04:34.160 there's like a form there to submit your receipt. You can get some free treats from me.

01:04:38.480 And those treats include, you can get a free one-year paid membership to my sub stack,

01:04:43.320 a free one-year paid membership to my Patreon, and you can have both. And the third thing,

01:04:49.100 you could also choose to get, or all three things, is to get a digital paper doll of Carolina Brunswick

01:04:53.760 and some of her most iconic outfits and accessories. So again, my book is called Rebel of the Regency

01:04:59.680 by Anne Foster. You can pre-order it all over the place and you can get links to pre-order it and

01:05:05.120 also a link to submit your receipt at rebelofthereagency.com. I also want to let you know

01:05:12.440 that as we're getting closer to my book coming out, I'm getting more comfortable with doing

01:05:18.180 public events and things like that. And as such, I'm doing my first ever Vulgar History

01:05:22.960 live podcast recording. It's going to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the Trident Cafe 7pm

01:05:29.280 on Wednesday, September 3rd. It's totally free. There's no need to sign up or register. You can

01:05:34.460 just truly just show up and I will be there and I hope people will be there and I'm going to be

01:05:39.640 telling a story from Canadian history. And I'm really looking forward to it. And it's going to

01:05:43.840 be me practicing to get ready for, for if I do more live podcast recordings around the time that

01:05:49.360 the book comes out and, you know, touring and visiting bookstores and things like that. And

01:05:53.560 it's funny because I know so many podcasts do live podcast recordings. Long-time listeners to

01:05:58.120 this podcast or anyone who's heard my Mary Queen of Scots series will know that I described John

01:06:04.100 Knox, the quote philosopher. He did these sort of yelling sermons where he would yell at everybody

01:06:11.340 about how women were whores. Um, and people would go there and be really influenced by him. And I 0.99

01:06:16.140 describe those, this is live podcast recordings. So now that I'm doing live podcast recordings,

01:06:20.100 I want to say like, I'm not going to be calling anyone whores except in complimentary ways, 0.68

01:06:24.840 but I just feel like live podcast recording makes me think of John Knox now.

01:06:30.000 Anyway, I also want to mention something else exciting, which is, so I have a Patreon,

01:06:35.780 which is where you can, um, support this podcast in various ways. Um, you can just join the Patreon

01:06:41.620 for free and that's supporting by making me feel good about it. We are really close to having a

01:06:47.300 thousand members, which is bananas and really exciting to me. And when we get to a thousand

01:06:52.360 members, maybe I'll do something special for all the Patreons. So you can join there for free,

01:06:57.020 absolutely free. And there you can get, I have some free things I do there, like updates about

01:07:02.260 my book and some I'm practicing doing videos, but also just like share links. And we have like

01:07:07.000 little chats and stuff. We have a nice time. You can also join the Patreon for $1, one American

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01:07:18.060 all the above. Plus also you get to have early ad free access to all episodes of this podcast.

01:07:24.240 So that's a little treat for you as well. And then if you join at the $6 a month or more level,

01:07:29.600 you get bonus episodes as well as access to our exclusive discord the vulgar history salon where

01:07:35.900 i also share some spoilers and information about upcoming episodes but crucially if you join it

01:07:40.640 that's six dollars a month or more level you get access to our bonus episodes like vulgar peace

01:07:45.760 theater which was on hiatus but is now back baby this is where myself and friends of the podcast

01:07:51.340 allison epstein and lana wood johnson we watch period movies we watch costume dramas and then

01:07:56.760 We talk about them, and we have a really nice time.

01:07:59.300 There's lots of tangents.

01:08:00.380 We talk about the outfits in the movies.

01:08:02.460 We talk about what did they change from real history or not.

01:08:05.220 And our grand return episode, we're talking about a movie that's called The Madness of

01:08:09.880 King George, which is from 1994 or 1995.

01:08:12.980 And it's about George III of England and his wife, Queen Charlotte. 0.81

01:08:16.720 And those are the people from Queen Charlotte, colon, a Bridgerton story, except not Black 0.99

01:08:22.640 people.

01:08:24.000 Charlotte, not a Black person in this film.

01:08:25.900 She's played by a white person, Helen Mirren.

01:08:28.460 Anyway, it's a movie about King George and his health problems, his mental health problems.

01:08:34.000 And they are the parents-in-law and also aunt and uncle of Carolina Brunswick, who I wrote

01:08:39.000 my book, Rebel of the Regency, about.

01:08:41.540 So there's some people in this movie who appear in the Carolina Brunswick story.

01:08:46.940 I will let you know that Carolina Brunswick's husband, George IV, aka Prinny, is in this

01:08:53.800 movie and he is the villain of the movie.

01:08:55.900 and that's how you know it's a good movie so anyway if you want to listen to vulgar peace

01:08:59.060 theater and our discussion of the madness of king george you can join the patreon patreon.com

01:09:04.040 slash ann foster writer is how you join the patreon at any of the levels but if you join

01:09:07.580 at the six dollars a month level you get to listen to that discussion or if you just want to listen

01:09:12.000 to it you can also get a free one-week trial or you could also pre-order my book sign up for the

01:09:17.460 free patreon membership listen to the episode and then you get a book in february and i have one

01:09:22.200 final thing to say. So many announcements today, but I was really excited about this. So we have

01:09:26.480 a brand partner who is called Common Year Jewelry, which is a small woman-owned business that makes

01:09:31.480 beautiful jewelry inspired by ancient Rome, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, and other ancient 0.80

01:09:35.700 cultures. This includes pendants and rings with images on them of women like Cleopatra or Anne

01:09:42.620 Boleyn, who's not from classical times, but don't worry about it, as well as jewelry based on pieces

01:09:48.340 found in archaeological digs and jewelry that just kind of looks kind of like what jewelry

01:09:53.160 in olden times looked like such as they have a new collection called ceremonia which is engagement

01:10:00.040 rings and they're so beautiful and I'm not looking to propose to anybody personally or to be proposed

01:10:06.240 to by anybody personally but I was like damn I want one of these rings so anyway it's called

01:10:12.260 ceremonia a collection of engagement rings inspired by ancient history like some of them are kind of 0.68

01:10:16.240 this is what a ring looked like that a woman in ancient Rome would have had, or the vibes of this

01:10:21.640 are kind of like ancient Greece adjacent. And they're all sort of inspired by like a specific

01:10:25.720 love story of somebody from oldie times anyway. So if you're somebody looking to get proposed to

01:10:31.940 or looking to propose to someone else, these rings are gorgeous. And if you want to just

01:10:37.400 drop a hint to somebody that you would like to be proposed to, when you go to the, each of the

01:10:42.880 rings on the common era website there's a little button that's like drop a hint so they could like

01:10:46.960 subtly let your person know like if you're going to propose to me this is what i want i want this

01:10:51.160 ring that looks like ancient rome so most of common era's pieces are available in solid gold

01:10:55.660 as well as in more affordable gold vermeil vulgar history listeners can always get 15 percent off

01:11:01.540 all items from common era by going to commonera.com slash vulgar or using called vulgar at checkout

01:11:07.100 and you should let that person know who you're dropping the hint to who you want to propose to

01:11:12.140 you that you want to be proposed to, but you also want to be, you know, that we're in a recession,

01:11:17.280 you know, like you want to get your deals or you can get your deals. So tell your person,

01:11:20.660 drop a hint. I want this ring, but also be like, use code vulgar for 15% off at the checkout. So

01:11:26.660 they can get the discount too. And that shows that you love them and they love you. I think

01:11:30.880 that's how that works. Anyway, we're in Marie Antoinette month for the next, I keep saying

01:11:36.220 seven weeks in my, I figured if that includes this week or not, but we're in it babes. Marie

01:11:41.580 Antoinette month. And next week, we're going to be talking about somebody, not Marie Antoinette

01:11:46.860 herself yet, but somebody even closer who knew her even better than Elizabeth Fuget LeBrun.

01:11:53.040 I won't say who that person is, but you'll find out next week because we were in Marie Antoinette

01:11:59.380 month. It's happening. Our long, our long wait is over. And I'm really excited to share all

01:12:04.480 these stories with you. Until next time, my friends, keep your pants on and your tits out. 0.99

01:12:11.580 vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster that's me editor is christina lumagi 0.99

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Vulgar History - August 12, 2025

Marie Antoinette's Favorite Painter, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Episode Stats

Transcript