This is a past event
Join us for this seminar (in French and in English) with Geneviève Haroche-Bouzinac, co-hosted by the Centre for Modern Languages Research (CMLR) and the Centre for Early Modern Studies (CEMS).
A precocious artist, Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) gained access to the court of Louis XVI and became a member of the Académie royale de peinture against the odds. The turmoil of the French Revolution sent her on a journey across Europe: her art attracted a princely clientele from Italy to Austria and from Russia to England. Even though she is perhaps essentially remembered today for her graceful portraits of Marie-Antoinette, Vigée Le Brun continued to work during the First Empire and Bourbon Restoration, taking an interest in the young Romantic generation. Drawing on archives, letters and unpublished notebooks, Geneviève Haroche-Bouzinac will shed light on the painter’s public and private life, and present some of the works that defined her extraordinary career.
Geneviève Haroche-Bouzinac, Emeritus Professor at the University of Orléans, published the most complete edition of Vigée Le Brun’s Souvenirs (2008) and her biography of the artist, Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, histoire d’un regard (2011), received the Prix Chateaubriand and the Mellor Book Prize.
This event will be held in Meeting Room 1 of The Sir Duncan Rice Library.