Self Portrait in a Straw Hat

This self-portrait by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, painted in 1782 and held by the National Gallery in London, shows the artist outdoors, beneath a clear sky that becomes cloudier toward the background. Her pose feels natural, and she looks directly at the viewer. She wears earrings and a straw hat decorated with flowers and ostrich feathers, while the palette and brushes she holds signal her profession, something unusual for women of the period. Without a corset, wig or rouge, she presents herself as a simple and self-assured figure, far from the conventions of aristocratic portraiture.

The painting grows out of the artist's admiration for Rubens. After travelling to Brussels, Amsterdam and Antwerp in 1782, she was deeply struck by a Rubens portrait of a woman in a hat, and her first version of this subject was a loose reinterpretation of that model. This canvas is a replica of that first version. Its main interest lies in its study of light: the hat shades the eyes and draws the gaze to the neck, lit from below.

The work is regarded as innovative for its natural simplicity, and it has been linked to the Neoclassical portraiture that Jacques-Louis David would later develop.

Painter

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Date

1782

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

98 × 70 cm

Museum

National Gallery, London

Genre

self-portrait

Depicts

pedestal, straw hat, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, palette

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