Portrait de Madame Perregaux

Vigee Le Brun painted this in 1789, and the date matters. She was Marie Antoinette's favourite portraitist, closely tied to the court, and when the Revolution turned dangerous that autumn she fled Paris, beginning twelve years of exile across Europe. This lively portrait of a banker's wife, leaning out toward us in a plumed hat and so-called Spanish costume, is among the last things she painted before she left. The pose and the dress are a deliberate nod to Rubens, whom she admired above almost anyone, and she even worked on a wood panel the way the old Flemish painters did. She thought well of the result. She later wrote to the sitter that of all her portraits this was the most charming, because it was the best likeness.