Portrait of Countess Maria Theresia Czernin

About this Brooklyn Icon

The Brooklyn Museum is commemorating its 200th anniversary by spotlighting 200 standout objects in its encyclopedic collection.

Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun was one of the most celebrated European artists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As a woman, she was barred from studying at the French Academy and thus largely self-taught. She eventually became a sought-after portraitist (her sitters included Queen Marie Antoinette) and in 1783 was one of only four women admitted to the Royal Academy in Paris. After the 1789 French Revolution, she left France and for 12 years traveled throughout Europe and Russia, supporting herself through portrait commissions from wealthy European nobles who were eager to sit for an internationally renowned artist.

She painted this vivid portrait of the Countess Maria Theresia Czernin in Vienna. Wrapped in a red shawl, and wearing her hair loose and unpowdered, her face is enlivened by a subtle smile that reveals her teeth. This expression, which appears on the faces of many of Vigée Le Brun’s wealthy sitters, was controversial; open mouth smiles were associated with the poor, immoral, or mentally ill. The Countess holds a copy of the Voyage of Anacharsis, a travel account published in 1787–88 that describes the customs and culture of ancient Greece. Its prominent place in the painting reflects that era’s widespread interest in antiquity and conjures for the sitter—and the artist—an aura of scholarship.