Portrait of Emperor Paul I’s Daughters by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun c.1796 (Hermitage) xDepicted: Gran

Portrait of Emperor Paul I’s Daughters by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun c.1796 (Hermitage) xDepicted: Grand duchess Alexandra and Elena Pavlovna of Russia.  Elena Pavlovna is holding a medallion with their grandmother’s Catherine the Great portrait.The famous french painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun while visiting St.Petersburg in 1795 was commissioned by Empress Catherine the Great to paint her eldest granddaughters - Alexandra and Elena. Élisabeth shared in her memoirs the impressions of both young ladies: “ Words cannot express  how many pretty women I’ve seen [at court in St.Petersburg] but the prettiest of them all are the grand duchesses (Alexandra and Elena) and princesses (Elizaveta Alexeievna and Anna Feodorovna)…Both of them [Alexandra and Elena] had angelic faces, but with very different expressions. Most astonishing was their face colour, so pure and delicate, that one might think they were eating ambrosia. The eldest, Alexandra, was a classic greek beauty and looked a lot like her bother Alexander, but the youngest Elena’s face was much more delicate.  I painted them together looking at the portrait of the Empress that they were holding in their hands. I painted them in greek but very modest tunics.  And I was so surprised when a favourite of the Empress Platon Zubov said that Her Majesty did not like that i choose these tunics. I believed this and changed the tunics for the dresses that the grand duchesses usually wore and covered their hands with ghastly sleeves. It turned out the Empress didn’t say any of this and was so kind as to tell me so herself…I did already spoil the whole idea of my painting, not to mention their beautiful hands which i painted as best as i could now were not seen.” Though in fact from the letter to Baron Grimm we know that Catherine the Great was not satisfied with the portrait as a whole: “…her first experience here is to paint grand duchesses Alexandra and Elena. The first one has a graceful interesting face and royal bearing, the second is an ultimate beauty and looks totally innocent. Madame Le Brun made both of them writhe on the couch, makes the youngest turn her neck to the fullest, which makes them both look like two monkeys basking in the sun…All in all, there is not only no resemblance to the originals, but both of the grand duchesses are so scarred that some people can’t say who is the eldest and who is the youngest. Madame Le Brun admirers are praising the painting till heavens, but i think it’s very bad, because it has neither taste nor grace and there is no resemblance what so ever. One must have no feelings and understanding to miss the mark so much especially when you have such original before your eyes…”- my translation from “The Romanov Princess: the Tsars Daughters” by E.V. Prokofieva, M.V. Skuratovskaya, S.A. Annina (2016)  -- source link

More pics about