Portrait of Countess Yekaterina von Engelhardt

Portrait of Countess Yekaterina von Engelhardt
Artist	Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Year	1796
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	80 cm × 66 cm (31 in × 26 in)
Location	Louvre, Paris

Portrait of Countess Yekaterina von Engelhardt is an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1796 by the French painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, from 1796. Its subject, Yekaterina von Engelhardt, was a Russian noblewoman and lady in waiting. The portrait was produced in Saint Petersburg and now is held in the Louvre, in Paris, which acquired it in 1966.[1] It was exhibited in Saint Petersburg in 1905 as part of the exhibition Russian Portraits of the 18th and 19th Centuries.[1]

Other versions

An earlier portrait of the same subject was produced by the artist in Naples in 1790 and is now in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris.[2]

Description and analysis

The portrait represents Skavronskaia smiling, dressed in a white and blue dress, while leaning on a red velvet cushion. She is depicted on a black background which contrasts with the warm light which seems to radiate from her look and her chest and is reflected on the cushion. She has a sweet and gentle expression and looks directly at the viewer.

For Marie-Jo Bonnet, this painting it is an ode to feminine beauty, softness and tranquillity; she also underlines that the painting of Vigée Le Brun was not seen by her contemporaries as typically feminine, but as a personification of grace as understood in her time.[3]

References

1. (in French) "Base Joconde entry".
2. (in French) Marie-Jo Bonnet, Les femmes dans l'art : qu'est ce que les femmes ont apporté à l'art ?, Paris, La Martinière, octobre 2004, 252 p. (ISBN 2-7324-3087-0)
3. (in French) Marie-Jo Bonnet, Les femmes dans l'art : qu'est ce que les femmes ont apporté à l'art ?, Paris, La Martinière, octobre 2004, 252 p. (ISBN 2-7324-3087-0)