MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY —
T. LEMAN HARE

VIGÉE LE BRUN
1755-1842

PLATE I.—MARIE ANTOINETTE. Frontispiece

(At Versailles)

The first portrait that VigÉe Le Brun painted, in her twenty-fourth year (1779) of Marie Antoinette. Here is no hint of the tragedy that was to overwhelm the handsome young daughter of Austria; all was as yet but gaiety and roses and sunshine and pleasant airs, and the glamour that hovers about a throne. But there are signs of the imperious temper of her house, combined with the levity and frivolity of manners which were so early to make her unpopular.