Portrait de Germaine de Staël en Corinne au Cap Misène - Portrait of Madame de Staël as Corinne on Cape Misenum (1809) “Oil on canvas, 139.80 x 125.00 cm” [Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, Switzerland] — Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun (French; 1755 -

This generously sized canvas, luminous despite the sobriety of its palette, brings together two illustrious women on either side of the easel: Germaine de Staël and Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. The first, daughter of the Genevan Jacques Necker, finance minister of Louis XVI, ordered her portrait from the second, who had learned from her father, then from Joseph Vernet and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Marie-Antoinette's favorite painter, she left Paris on the announcement of the Revolution and shared her life between Italy, London and Saint Petersburg. Dressed in the antique, Germaine de Staël here embodies the character she created for her novel Corinne ou l'Italie. By revealing both the strength and delicacy of Corinne, a talented poet and passionate lover, Vigée-Lebrun pays homage to the writer and philosopher, as well as to the independent spirit of the woman who, famous for the salon that held in Paris, never ceased to denounce the social constraints imposed on women.

 

Source: Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva

 

collections.geneve.ch/mah/oeuvre/portrait-de-germaine-de-...

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élisabeth_Vigée_Le_Brun

 

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