The Marquise de Pezay, and the Marquise de Rougé with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien

Vigee Le Brun showed this at the Paris Salon of 1787, where it was praised as a picture of friendship and motherhood, two women who were close friends of hers, out in a garden with the children. The marquise de Pezay is in blue satin, the marquise de Rouge in red and white stripes, the boys folded easily into the group. It is the height of a certain French world, elegant, unhurried, sure of itself. The painter was then the most sought-after portraitist in France and a favourite of Marie Antoinette. That closeness was about to turn dangerous. Two years after this Salon the Revolution broke out, and Vigee Le Brun, tied to the queen, fled the country on the very night the royal family was forced from Versailles, beginning 12 years of exile.