Lines and Colors

Self portrait in a Straw Hat,, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun; oil on canvas, roughly 39 x 28 in. (99 x 70 cm); in the collection of the National Gallery, London. There is a high resolution image available from this page on Wikipedia.

Vigée Le Brun was a renowned 18th centry portait painter. Her subjects included the queen, Marie Antoinette, who considered Vigée Le Brun to be her favorite portraitest.

Vigée Le Brun is thought to have flattered her sitters — not uncommon among portrait artists — but whether that was the case here, I don’t know. It was possibly a moot point, as she was reportedly quite beautiful.

I think it’s a wonderful portrait. Look at the delicacy of the modeling, the light under the chin and the greens in the skin tones.

There is a pencil and study for the portrait — with the head in a slightly different position — in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY (images above, second from bottom).

Vigée Le Brun is quoted as saying she was inspired to do a self portrait in this motif after seeing Peter Paul Rubens’ portrait of Susanna Lunden (images above, bottom).

Ustensiles de cuisine, chaudron, poêlon et oeufs, Jean baptiste Siméon Chardin, oil on wood, roughly 7×15″ (17 x 38 cm), in the collection of the Louvre.

Another of Chadin’s marvelous little still life paintings, that I find elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary.

I love the way Chardin paints copper. The white markings along the left of the pot may be a damaged area of the painting; I dont know. The Louvre’s page doesn’t mention it.

The page lists the translation of the title as: Kitchen utensils, cauldron, frying pan and eggs, with a former title of: Cauldron of tinned red copper, pepper pot, leek, three eggs and frying pan placed on a table.

The “frying pan” (or “skillet” in Google translation) looks odd to me for that description, but perhaps it was specialized for cooking eggs. My knowledge of 18th century cookware is certainly limited. I’m wondering if the apparently hollow handle served to keep it cool enough to pick up.

The other object, not mentioned in the title, may be a pepper grinder.