Marie-Antoinette and Her Children – Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Marie-Antoinette and Her Children – Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1787

Painted in 1787, just two years before the Revolution, this monumental portrait was a deliberate act of political image-making. Commissioned to soften the Queen's public image, Vigée Le Brun portrays Marie-Antoinette not as a distant sovereign but as a devoted mother — surrounded by her children, tender and present. The empty cradle in the composition, where the recently deceased infant Sophie would have lain, adds a note of quiet tragedy to the scene.

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) was one of the most celebrated portrait painters of her era and one of the few women admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Her intimate access to the French court and her extraordinary technical mastery made her the defining portraitist of the Ancien Régime.

• Artist: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842)
• Painted: 1787, Versailles
• Style: Neoclassicism, French portrait painting
• Medium: Museum-quality digital reproduction on Luster Premium Photo Paper
• Available in multiple sizes