10/07/2026
Parents often wonder if the things they teach their kids will stick with them through life. A pair of pastels in the national collection tells the story of a father and daughter who shared a talent for portraiture: https://bit.ly/4AT1B02
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun – who became the portraitist of Marie Antoinette and one of the most important artists of the 18th century – fondly remembered the lessons she received from her artist father, who let her “scribble with his crayons all day” when she was a child.
The Gallery recently acquired a pastel by Louis Vigée, which shows his skill in subtly rendering different textures, such as soft velvet, lustrous satin, translucent shirt cuffs, and even fine white dust left on the shoulders by a powdered wig.
This work makes a fascinating pairing with the pastel by Vigée Le Brun that the Gallery acquired in 2024. This detailed study shows her complete mastery of the medium and captures her career at full maturity, when the results of her father’s teaching became clearly evident.
📖 Learn more about these two works in the Gallery’s collection in the article by Sonia Del Re, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, in the NGC Magazine.
If you find yourself in St. John’s, Newfoundland, stop by The Rooms to see the pastel by Vigée Le Brun in person – it is currently on view as part of the Gallery’s touring exhibition, Gathered Leaves.
🖼️ Louis Vigée, Portrait of André-Jean Sauvage, 1743. Pastel, 73 x 59.2 cm; and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Study for the Figure of Innocence in “Innocence Taking Refuge in the Arms of Justice”, c.1779. Pastel on brown laid paper (originally blue), 42 x 33.7 cm. Purchased in 2024. Both National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photos: NGC
Two works – by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun and her father Louis Vigée – tell the story of a family of artists whose destiny would become closely tied to French pastel painting.
