Peace bringing back Prosperity

This allegory by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, painted in 1780, presents two female figures in the foreground: Peace, on the right, dressed in dark clothing with billowing drapery, and Abundance, on the left, partly nude, blonde, in a white dress and surrounded by flowers and fruit. Peace's hand grips Abundance's wrist while the other presses gently on her shoulder, a gesture that suggests guidance and control. The most striking feature is its naturalism: unlike conventional allegorical figures, which were abstract and expressionless, Vigée Le Brun gives both women a shared gaze, gesture and emotion. This has led some historians to read an erotic charge into the picture and others to see an inversion of usual gender roles. The work was submitted as her reception piece for the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1783, and it drew mixed responses: some critics praised its colour and talent, while others doubted her authorship or objected to a woman tackling such a subject. It has also been read as anticipating the peace that ended French involvement in the American Revolution, although the absence of a figure representing Louis XVI makes that reading uncertain.

Painter

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Date

1780

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

102 × 132 cm

Museum

Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture

Genre

allegory

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