Vigée Le Brun

Vigée Le Brun

From In Our Time: Culture by BBC Radio 4

July 23, 2026 · 56 min

About this episode

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the life and work of French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, highlighting her impact on art and society during her time.

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). From her teens she delighted her high society subjects in and around Paris, notably Marie Antoinette who she painted around 30 times, and she invariably found ways to show her sitters at their best. Some critics were affronted that she, a young woman, dared paint at all and, when they saw how good her portraits were, some spread a rumour that surely this could not really be her work and she must have had a secret male lover finishing her portraits in a studio. The French Revolution forced Vigée Le Brun out of France and so she set off from one European court to another to find more success from Naples to Vienna to St Petersburg and to London, eventually settling back in France. Today her works are on show in major galleries around the world. With Rosalind Polly Blakesley Master of Pembroke College and Professor of Russian and European Art at the University of Cambridge Robert Wenley Deputy Director of Collections and Research at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham And Francesca Whitlum-Cooper Curator of Later Italian, Spanish and French Paintings at The…

People in this episode

Host: Misha Glenny

Guests: Rosalind Polly Blakesley, Robert Wenley, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The National Gallery, University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham

Books & works: Vigée Le Brun

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