Portrait of a boy, bust-length

This portrait of a little boy was executed by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, one of the great European portrait painters in the second half of 18th Century. In 1801, the date of this portrait, Vigée Le Brun stopped in Dresden on her way from Berlin to Frankfurt. We know that during her time in Dresden she was a guest of Auguste Rivière and met the writer Jean-Louis Laya. From her time in Dresden is also a pastel portrait of Teresa Czartoryska (1785–1868), later princess Lubomirska, now in the Muzeum Okregowe in Tarnów (inv. MT-A-M/266; see Jeffares, op. cit., online, no. J.76.274, ill.). The latter work is particularly interesting as its size and format are very similar to the present portrait. Both works present the same motif of the trompe-l’œil frame which carries an inscription and a date (although the date on the pastel in Tarnów was added later and seems to be incorrect). There have been several attempts to identify the young sitter in this portrait (see, for example, Cardellini, op. cit., no. 6), but ultimately none are convincing.

We are grateful to Neil Jeffares for his assistance in cataloguing this work.