ticketsMember | Make a donation

Boy with a Flintlock Rifle

1817
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Children occupied an increasingly important place in Vigée Le Brun’s time, when the relative influence of nature and nurture was a subject of debate. The boy in this portrait is unidentified and could be eight or ten. He wears a gentleman’s coat or jacket and holds a sturdy functional gun, which could have been his own first weapon.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Boy with a Flintlock Rifle
  • Artist: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755–1842 Paris)
  • Date: 1817
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 21 × 17 3/4 in. (53.3 × 45.1 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay (1986.343)
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings