Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Marie Antoinette in a Blue Velvet Dress and a White Skirt
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun French
Not on view
After completing her famous 1787 portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children, Vigée Le Brun painted this work, doubtless without a sitting and probably on her own initiative. She believed that there would be requests for other images of the queen but in the end she did not sell this canvas for many years. The face and pose of Marie Antoinette in the two compositions are almost identical, but here she has aged and she communicates a degree of regal severity.