Madame de Staël as Corinne at Cape Miseno

Madame de Staël as Corinne at Cape Miseno

Madame de Staël as Corinne at Cape Miseno
Artist:Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755–1842 Paris)
Date:1807–9
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:55 1/8 × 46 1/2 in. (140 × 118 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de la Ville de Genève, Gift of Madame Necker-de-Saussure, 1841 (1841-0003)

In Switzerland, Vigée Le Brun painted Madame de Staël (1766–1817), an influential writer banished from France by Napoleon. The sitter had recently published Corinne, a novel about a woman struggling and failing to achieve creative and romantic independence. Understandably, she disliked this unflattering portrait and had an almost identical but more attractive version painted by another, less important artist.

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