Notice de l'oeuvre :
The impact that Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun had on the art of her time is comparable to that of very few other female artists. She received her first artistic training from her father, the pastellist Louis Vigée (1715-1767), and later became a pupil of the painters Gabriel François Doyen (1726-1806) and Gabriel Briard (1725-1777). In the 1770s she started working on her first commissions of portraits and became a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc in 1774. She married the merchant, painter and restorer Jean-Baptiste Lebrun in 1776, and later became the official painter of Queen Marie-Antoinette. Thanks to the protective intervention of the Queen, Vigée Le Brun was admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on 31 May 1783, at the same time as her competitor Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. Extremely talented and highly respected by the elites, who became her friends as well as patrons, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun managed to effectively promote her career by presenting herself as an accomplished portraitist. The artist’s talent as childhood painter was particularly praised at the 1787 Salon, where she exhibited three effigies of mothers in the company of their children — specifically of the Queen, of the Marquises de Pezay et de Rougé and of herself (ill. 1) — alongside a number of portraits of young boys and girls.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was very close to many members of the Montesquiou-Fezensac family and produced numerous portraits for them between 1779 and 1782. She often visited the Parisian private mansion of Marquis Anne Élisabeth Pierre de Montesquiou-Fezensac and his château de Mauperthuis in Seine-et-Marne where, in her own words, reigned “order and magnificence”. Vigée Le Brun also designed a profusion of drawings and pastels which depicted the youngest members of the Lastic-Sieujac and Montesquiou-Fezensac families.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun painted this Portrait of Raymond Aimery de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1784- 1867) in 1788. The child portrayed will later become Baron of Montesquiou-Fezensac and Baron of the Empire in 1809, as well as second Duke of Montesquiou in 1832. Raymond, the son of General Philippe de Montesquiou-Fezensac and of Louise Joséphine de Lalive de Jully, was also the grandson of the French financier Ange Laurent La Live de Jully (1725- 1779), an art enthusiast, painter and engraver who was himself portrayed by Tocqué (ill. 2) and Greuze. Raymond de Montesquiou-Fezensac led a brilliant military career. In 1805, aged twenty, he was nominated lieutenant during the German Campaign. He also participated in the Prussian Campaign as aide-de-camp of Marshall Ney, as well as in the battles of Eylau and Iéna. Furthermore, in 1808 he took part in the sieges of Zaragoza and of Madrid, and rejoined La Grande Armée in Austria in 1809. He stood out amongst his peers for his heroic courage displayed during the 1812 Russian Campaign, at the end of which he was promoted to colonel. In 1813 Raymond proved once again his bravery during the Siege of Hamburg and the Battle of Kulm. He was nominated major general of the Royal Guard in 1815, and lieutenant-general in 1823. In 1830 he led the division of reserve of the Army of Africa and in 1838 he became ambassador in Spain. His numerous successes on the field earned him the Legion of Honour in 1839.
Our painting exemplifies one of the most exquisite portraits of children ever made by the artist. The young Raymond, aged four, interrupts his game of cards to briefly pose with his head and hands resting on the table. He charms the viewer with his ingenuity and candour. His sweet little face, his fine complexion, his large blue eyes, his gracious nose and the gentle smile on his mouth disclose his sweetness and charm. His relaxed pose, together with his delicate appearance and tender gaze, reveals his curiosity and vivacious intelligence.
In our painting Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun used a formula that can be similarly detected in many of the portraits she created in 1786, including those depicting the Count d’Espagnac (ill. 3), Caroline Lalive de La Briche (ill. 4) and Marie Renée Louise de Foucquet (ill. 5). It entailed the depiction of the sitter in three-quarters, with his/her face facing the viewer in order to emphasise the juvenile traits that she often illuminated with a subtle smile that at times reveals the teeth. She similarly portrayed them with an arm bent towards the chest to accentuate the volume of the composition and of the silhouette, which is slightly detached from the background; she also favoured the rendering of the background ‘en frottis’, which ultimately reveals a clear preparatory layer. Children were mostly portrayed ‘au naturel’, rather than dressed or coiffed like tiny adults. Notwithstanding, the sophisticated outfit worn by the young Raymond Aimery de Montesquiou-Fezensac does not fail to reveal his rang. Similarly to the Dauphin depicted with his sister by Vigée Le Brun in 1784, Raymond is portrayed wearing a plum silk suit ‘à la matelote’ or ‘à la marinière’ which is in harmony with the green velvet tablecloth (ill. 6). Just as in the Portrait of Alexandrine Émilie Brongniart painted in 1788, this elegant contrast between plum and green fabrics is enhanced by the grey-blue background (ill. 7).
Our portrait clearly displays Vigée Le Brun’s ability to capture the innocence and sweetness of his young sitters — task which she clearly took great pleasure in performing. Painted in a very smooth and fluid fashion, her portraits of children echo those by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, even though they propose a less extreme sentimentality.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun celebrated the values of the Enlightenment in her œuvre as she witnessed the decay of the Ancien Régime society. The publication of the first book of L’Émile (1762), in which Jean-Jacques Rousseau highlighted the necessity to pay attention to the children of the ‘‘age of nature’’, was not unrelated to the artistic interest in very young models displayed by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and other painters of her generation. This pragmatic and visionary treatise contributed to the emergence of a new norm of family life thanks to the discovery of a set of emotions specific to childhood. Our painting definitely adheres to this humanist understanding of children. According to Rousseau, children ‘‘Have their own ways of seeing, hearing and thinking. Nothing would be more absurd than wanting to substitute their ways with our own’’. The placement of the queen of hearts card right before the eyes of the young Raymond was a significant compositional choice since, according to the cartomancy of the time, the draw of such a card signified the benevolence of the mother. This belief and arrangement crystallise the new importance given to the relationship between mothers and their children. Vigée Le Brun excelled in her double portraits depicting women in the company of their offspring. This is confirmed by her well-known Self Portrait currently in the Louvre in which her daughter Julie, born on 12 February 1780, finds refuge on her lap.
Critics of the time praised with particular emphasis the ability of her paintings to express the veracity of the maternal sentiment, which, from this moment onwards, was considered ‘instinctive’.
If Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun is one of the pioneer artists in the creation of sentimental portraits of children, which ultimatly acted as harbingers of a new philosophy, other artists, amongst which Mary Cassatt, followed her lead in the 19th century by creating artworks which similarly glorify domestic bliss and maternity.
Amélie du Closel
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