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Vigee Le Brun had been Marie Antoinette's favourite portraitist, which made France dangerous for her once the Revolution began. She fled in 1789 and spent the next years painting her way across Europe, and by 1790 she had reached Naples. There she painted this Russian countess, Yekaterina Skavronskaya, a niece of Prince Potemkin and wife of the Russian envoy to the Neapolitan court. The countess holds a small oval miniature of her absent husband. Vigee Le Brun found her lovely but idle, describing a woman of angelic softness who spent her days doing very little. She signed the canvas as painted at Naples in 1790.