Vigee Le Brun ART Page 65

ART PAGE 65

	Mlle de Pront - 1818 Pastel, 42.5 x 32 cm
	Marie Antoinette - 1778 oil on canvas Versailles This is one of many signature copies/versions of the original (Art Page 31) which is in Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Another copy went to Catherine the Great; it is now unlocated. Another copy was sent to the American Congress as a gift of the French government, and was burned when the British destroyed the Capitol on 24 August, 1814. View another picture of this painting.
	Madame Grand, later Princess de Talleyrand - 1776 oil on canvas Catherine Noele Verlee (called Worlee) was born in Tranquebar, India, in 1762, where her father was a French official. In 1778, when she was barely 16, she married George Francis Grand. After adventures in Calcutta and London they settled in Paris where she was painted by Vigée Le Brun. She divorced Grand, and in 1802 married Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, Duc de Périgord, later Prince de Bénévent. They separated in 1815. She died in 1835. Vigee Le Brun only listed one portrait of the sitter in 1783 (Art Page 8), but this variant has always been attributed to her. Reference Kimbell Exhibition Catalog Number 12 for nore details of her unusual life.