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Madame Adélaïde de France

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun French

Not on view

Of the ten children born to Louis XV and Marie Leszczynska, only Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire survived the Revolution. Unmarried and approaching sixty, the once haughty aristocrats emigrated in 1791. They crossed the Alps in winter and settled in Rome, where they were largely dependent on the kindness of others. Vigée Le Brun portrays the two women as elderly private citizens whose nearly identical clothes suggest the way their lives were intertwined.

Madame Adélaïde de France, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755–1842 Paris), Oil on canvas

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