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Countess Varvara Nikolayevna Golovina
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun French
Not on view
Vigée Le Brun observed that Countess Golovina (1766–1821) “was always on the lookout for the literary news from Europe, which, I believe, was known at her house as soon as it was in Paris.” The sitter is cloaked in a large red stole, as if protecting herself from the rigors of the Russian winter. Perhaps the most original work of the artist’s Russian period, the portrait recalls La Frileuse (Winter) by Jean Antoine Houdon, a bronze version of which is reproduced here.
#420. Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France: Countess Varvara Nikolayevna Golovina
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