VIGÉE LE BRUN painted her first portrait of Marie-Antoinette in 1778, Marie-Antoinette “en robe à paniers”. This
is a full-length, formal representation of the queen in court regalia,
wearing a splendidly decorated white satin hoopskirt. While the portrait
brilliantly demonstrates Vigée Le Brun’s virtuosity as a court painter,
it reveals little of its subject. But it was eminently in keeping with a
tradition of formal portraiture of the spouse of a monarch. The portrait
was executed for the queen’s brother, Emperor Joseph II, and Marie-
Antoinette was so pleased with it that she ordered two copies: one for
Catherine II, Empress of all Russias, and the other for her own apartments
at Versailles.
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