Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun: Vienna

"The Princess von und zu Liechtenstein
as Iris" by Vigee Lebrun

Having seen a great influx of people fleeing France, Elisabeth Louise Vigee Lebrun abandoned her plans to return there and went to Vienna instead. She writes in her autobiography:

"Vienna is of considerable extent, if you count its thirty-two suburbs. It is full of very fine palaces. The Imperial Museum boasts pictures by the greatest masters, and I often went to admire them, as well as those belonging to Prince Lichtenstein. His gallery comprises seven rooms, of which one contains only pictures by Van Dyck and the others some fine Titians, Caravaggios, Rubens, Canalettos, and so on. There are also several masterpieces by the last-named painter in the Imperial Museum. 

In Vienna I went to several balls, especially to those given by the Russian Ambassador, Count Rasomovski. They danced the waltz there with such fury that I could not imagine how all these people, spinning round at such a rate, did not fall down from giddiness; but men and women were so accustomed to this violent exercise that they never rested a single moment while a ball lasted. The "polonaise" was often danced, too, and was much less fatiguing, for this dance is nothing more than a procession in which you quietly walk two by two. It suits pretty women to perfection, as there is time to look their faces and figures all over.  

I also made frequent visits at the house of the Countess de Rombec, who gathered about her the most distinguished society of Vienna. I there met again the amiable Prince de Ligne; he told us about the delightful journey he had made in the Crimea with the Empress Catherine II, and inspired me with a wish to see that great ruler. In the same house I encountered the Duchess de Guiche, whose lovely face had not changed in the least. Her mother, the Duchess de Polignac, lived permanently at a place near Vienna. It was there that she heard of the death of Louis XVI., which affected her health very seriously, but when she heard the dreadful news of the Queen's death she succumbed altogether. Her grief changed her to such an extent that her pretty face became unrecognisable, and every one foresaw that she had not much longer to live. She did, in fact, die in a little while, leaving her family and some friends who would not leave her disconsolate at their loss.

I had learned nothing of this from the newspapers, for I had read them no more since the day when, having opened one at Mme. de Rombec's, I had found the names of nine persons of my acquaintance who had been guillotined. People even took care to hide all political pamphlets from me. I thus heard of the horrible occurrence through my brother, who wrote it down and sent the letter without giving any further particulars whatever. His heart broken, he simply wrote that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had perished on the scaffold. Afterward, from compassion toward myself, I always abstained from putting the least question concerning what accompanied or preceded that awful murder, so that I should have known nothing about it to this very day had it not been for a certain fact to which I may possibly refer in the future.

As soon as spring came I took a little house in a village near Vienna and went to settle there. This village, called Huitzing, was adjacent to the park of Schoenbrunn. I took with me to Huitzing the large portrait I was then doing of the Princess Lichtenstein, to finish it. This young Princess was very well built; her pretty face had a sweet, angelic expression, which gave me the idea of representing her as Iris. I painted her standing, as if about to fly into the air. She had about her a fluttering, rainbow-coloured scarf. Of course I painted her with naked feet, but when the picture was hung in her husband's gallery the heads of the family were greatly scandalised at seeing the Princess exhibited without shoes, and the Prince told me that he had had a pair of nice, little slippers placed under the portrait, which slippers, so he had informed the grandparents, had slipped off her feet and fallen on the ground."

To be continued