More than "a preposterous neo-classich rehash:" Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun's "Sibyl" and its Virgilian Connotations

More Than "a preposterous neo-classic rehash:" ElisabethVig6e Le Brun's Sibyl and its Virgilian Connotations*

Andrew D. Hottle

Often defined by her role as the court painter to Marie-Antoinette,Elisabeth Vig6e Le Brun is generally known for her flattering, modish, andsometimes superficial representations of Europe's elite. The preponderanceof stylish portraits in her oeuvre has regrettably eclipsed her comparativelyrare opportunities to demonstrate her powers of pictorial invention. Amongthe latter is her Sibyl (Fig. 1), a striking depiction of an ancient seer forwhom the notorious Lady Emma Hamilton served as the model. Vig6e LeBrun created this self-proclaimed masterpiece while living as an expatriatein ltaly, where exposure to ancient and modern works contributedappreciably to her artistic evolution. Although it transcends mere similitude,the Sibyl has repeatedly been identified and discussed as a portrait ofEmma Hamilton. When exhibited at The Hallsborough Gallery in 1965, thepainting was described in the sale catalogue as "a beautiful and unexpectedportrait of a famous sitter, [which] is an important document in the history oftaste."' lt was concurrently denigrated in a review by Benedict Nicholson,who called it "a preposterous neo-classic rehash of Domenichino and thelate Guercino, the very last gasp of the Bolognese Seicento."z Neither theexultation of its aesthetic and documentary appeal nor the derision of theSiby/ as an absurd imitation are satisfactory ways to characterize Vig6e LeBrun's painting. Given the persistent generalizations about the fashionable-

*Poriions of this article were presented at the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies(ASECS) annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia, in March 2007. For answering my queriesabout Greek translations of Virgil, I thank Julia Gaisser and Graig Kallendorf. I am also gratefulfor the helpful suggestions from Joanna Gardner-Huggett and the anonymous reviewer forAurcra. Finally, I offer special thanks to Derek Johns for generously providing a photograph ofthe SrbyL All translations are mine unless othenrise noted. Quotations from the artisfs memoirare translated from Elisabeth Vig6e Le Brun, Souvenirs, Genevidve Haroche-Bouzinac, ed.,Paris, 2008, which follows the original French publication of Souvenirs, Paris, 1 835-1837.

t Frcm Butinone to Chagall: Fine Paintings and Drawings of Six Cenfuies, London, 1965, 67.

2 B[enedic{t N['cholson], 'Cunent and Forthcoming Exhibitions," Bwlington Magazine, QYl|1965, 265. He continues, 'ln Rome at that moment, where the picture was painted [srd, all thebright young men were tuming their backs on the Seicento and making the pilgrimage toAssisi." This remark clearly shows that Nicholson did not count Vig6e Le Brun among theintelligent and aspiring (male) artists who were active in Rome in the early 1790s. On theexclusion of women from the art-historical narrative, see Griselda Pollock, Differencing theCanon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art's Histaies, London, '1999, 3-38. See alsoWhitney Chadwick, lA/omen Artists and the Politics of Representation,' in Feminist ArtCiticism: An Anthology, Arlene Raven et al., eds., New York, 1988, 167-185; Julia K. Dabbs,"Sex, Lies, and Anecdotes: Gender Relations in the Life Stories of ltalian Women Artists, 1550-1800," Aurcra, Vl,2005, 17-37.

Andrew D. Hottle, Elissbeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl l2l

ness of her art,3 summary pronouncements like these, dispensed assuredlyby ostensible authorities, threaten to foreclose any meaningful assessmentof the artist's accomplishment. Moreover, the infamy of Lady Hamilton, thepresumed subject of the Siby{ has long overshadowed the actual content ofthe painting. In addition to these impediments, direct exposure to Vig6e LeBrun's Sibyl is limited. Although there are two three-quarter-lengthrenditions, which are nearly identical, both remain in private collections,* asdoes an autograp-h bust-length version that was given by the artist to Sir\Mlliam Hamilton.' Nevertheless, a careful evaluation of Vig6e Le Brun'sSibyl in its cultural and historical context reveals that the artist executed anintelligently classicizing work that is imbued with Virgilian allusions.

Vig6e Le Brun's nascent interest in elevated subject matter is found inher allegorical and mythological works of the late 1770s and early 1780s,more than a decade before she painted her Srby/. Upon her acceptance asan acadhmicienne by the Acad€mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in1783, Vig6e Le Brun audaciously presented Peace Bringing BackAbundance (1780; Paris, Mus6e du Louvre), executed three years earlier,as her reception piece. The subject and composition of this allegorical workare consistent with history painting, the most respected category in theAcaddmie, yet women were effectively precluded from such an achievementbecause they were forbidden the requisite study of the nude model.6 At theSalon of 1783, the anonymous reviewer in the M6mofes secrefs opined, 'l

do not know in which class the Acad6mie has placed Madame Le Brun,whether history, genre, or portraiture, but she is not unworthy of any, eventhe first. I consider her reception piece very likely to gain her admittance

' The occurrences of such oversimplifications are too numerous to list. One especially floridexample is Piere de Nolhac, Madame Vig6e-Le Brun, peinte de Maie-Antoinetfe, Paris, 1912,2, in which the author describes her work as "stylish, delicate, frivolous, [and] enveloped bycharm and abandon' ("66gante, fngile, futile, [et] envelopp6e de grdce etd'abandorf).

o Both are oil on canvas. One, which measures 135.8 x 99 cms., is signed and dated 1792; thatpainting was sold in 1965 at The Hallsborough Gallery. The other bears no inscription, but itsmeasurements - 137.2 x 98.4 cms. - vary almost imperceptibly and the composition isidentical; that work, illustrated here, was sold most recently by Derek Johns Ltd. in 1996. Forthe compficated provenance of the two works, see Sotheby's lmryftant Old Master Paintings,Sale 6798, New York, 1996, lot 154.

5 This painting measures 73 x 57.2 cms. and is signed and dated 1792. lt was given to SirWilliam Hamilton not long after it was executed; see Vig6e Le Brun, 400. For the history of thiswork, as well as a compelling argument that it was actually the model for the larger paintings,see Joseph Baillio et al., The Afts of France frcm Fnngois ler to Napol6on /er, New York, 2005,325-329.

B See, for example, Linda Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?," in Arfand Sexual Politics: Women's Uberation, Women Artists, and Aft Histoty, Thomas B. Hess andEfizabeth C. Baker, eds., New York,1973,2+27.

122 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

therein."T She was, in fact, received by the institution without a designatedcategory.o Around the same time, Vig6e Le Brun exhibited several otherallegorical^and mythological pictures, which she identified as 'tableaux

d'histoire." Among them were Venus Binding the Wings of Cupid (privatecollection) and Juno Borrowing.the Girdle of Venus (location unknown), bothshown at the Salon of 1783.'" lnnocence Taking Refuge in the Arms ofJustice (Fig. 2) was created in 1779 and exhibited four years later, with JunoBonowing the Girdle of Venus, at the Salon de la Correspondance. " HerBacchante (Paris, Mus€e Nissim de Camo.ndo), a single half-lengthmythological figure, hung at the Salon of 1785.'' Although history paintingswere traditionally conceived'as large multi-figure compositions with eruditeovertones, less complex works were likewise categorized in the eighteenthcentury.'o For instance, Jean-Baptiste Santene's Susanna at the Bath(1704; Paris, Mus6e du Louvre), in which the two lecherous elders arebarely discernible in the darkened background, is dominated by the seatedtitle character. Santene was initially accepted by the Acad6mie as aportraitist in 1698, but his submission of Susanna at the Bath in 1704advanced him to the status of history painter.la Further, Jean-Baptiste

'Bemadefte Fort, ed., Les Sa/ons des "M6moires secrefs'1767-1787, Paris, 1999, 25'l:"J'ignore dans quelle classe l'Acad6mie a plac6 Madame Lebrun, ou de I'histoirc, ou du genrc,ou de portaits, mais elle n'est point indigne d'aucune, m6me de la premi9re. Je regarde sontableau de dreption @mme trCs suscepfb/e de fy fairc admeftre."

E For a thorough discussion of Vig6e Le Brun's conflicfs with the Acad6mie over her receptionpiece (morceau de r6reption), see Mary D. Sheriff, The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vig6e-Lebrun and the Cultunl Politics of Arf, Chicago, 1996, 73-99. See also Pierre Rosenberg et al.,Les peintrcs du roi, 164&1793, Paris, 2000, 212-2'14.

t In her list of woks, appended to her memoir, Mg6e Le Brun identified ten 'tableaux d'histoire"that were executed before her departure from France in 1789. See Vig€e Le Brun, 342.

10 Joseph Baillio, Elisabeth Louie Vigee Le Brun 175*1842, Forl Worth, 1982, 17; NeilJeffares, Dictionary of Pasfe//isfs beforc 1800, London, 2006, 552. Fot Juno Bonowing theGirdle of Venus, see Colin B. Bailey, Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modem Aft in Prc-RevolutionaryPads, New Haven, 2002, 197.

" Bailfio, 1982, 17; Jefiares, 552.

12 For this painting and its variants, see Rosenberg and Marion C. Stewart, French Paintings150G1825: The Fine Afts Museums of 9an Francisa, San Francisco, 1987, 313-315.

13 For the destabilization of history painting as a result of incompatible social and theoreticalideologies, see Thomas E. Crow, Painters and Public Lffe in Eighteenth-Century Pans, NewHaven, 1985, 104-110. On the hierarchy of categories, see Jean Ghatelus, Peindre e Pais auXVllle s6cle, Nimes, 1991, 161-181.

la Rosenberg et al., 2000, 123-124.lncidentally, Vig6e Le Brun incontroveftibly knew Santerre'sSusanna and the E/ders. which is mentioned in her memoir. While in Turin. she met Carlo

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyt 123

Oudry, who is known primarily for stilllife and animal compositions, wasadmitted to the Acad6mie as a peintre d'histoire." His reception piece,Abundance and Her Aftributes (1719; Versailles, Mus6e National duChiteau), depicts an allegorical female figure surrounded by two pufti andvarious symbols of fecundity.

Like her later Srby{ Vig6e Le Brun's early history subjects emphasizefemale protagonists, but their compositions are less sophisticated.lnnocence Taking Refuge in the Arms of Justice, for example, closelyresembles the allegorical paintings of Louis Lagren6e, particularlyGoodness and Generosity and Jusfice and Clemency (both Salon of 1765;Fontainebleau, Mus6e National du Chiteau). Vig6e Le Brun's painting hasvirtually the same composition as the latter (Fig. 3), namely the outdoorsetting, the presence of accoutrements at the lower left, an animal at theright, and the dominant personification of Justice reassuring a vulnerableallegorical figure. To her credit, the young artist selected allegorical motifsand mythological episodes which were infrequently depicted by hercontemporaries; at nearly the same historical moment, this strategy wasemployed .Jnore successfully by the celebrated Swiss artist AngelicaKauffman.'" Vig€e Le Brun's early exploration of history subjects reveals herambition to create elevated compositions that would demonstrate herpowers of invention.lT Moreover, oiher aspects of her life and work in the1780s reveal her affinity for classical allusions; for instance, the sitter's posein her aflegorical Portrait of Hendryk Lubomirski as fhe Genius of Fame(1789; Berlin, Gemdldegalerie) .was inspired by the Hellenistic CrouchingVenus (Rome, Musei Vaticani).'" Her interest in antiquity also permeatedher "souper grec," an event held in 1789 that she enthusiastically describedin her Souvenirs over forty years later. Certain passages in Jean-JacquesBarth6femy's Le Voyage du jeune Anacharsis (published in 1788),.a popularbut idealized six-volume narrative of ancient Peloponnesian life,'" inspired

Antonio Porporati, who made an engraving after the painting in 1773. See Vigde Le Brun, 345n. 1 (original note by Vig6e Le Brun).

15 Rosenberg et al., 2OOO, 142-144.

ro Wendy Wassyng Roworth, ?ncient Matrons and Modern Patrons: Angelica Kauftnan as aCfassical History Paintet," in Women, Art and the Politics of ldentity in Eighteenth-CenturyEwope, Melissa Hyde and Jennifer Milam, eds., Burlington, 2003, 196-197.

t7 Rosenberg, 'A Drawing by Madame Vig€e-Le Brun," Buflington Magazine, CXXlll, 1981, 740.

lE Henning Bock, 'Ein Bildnis von Prinz Heinrich Lubomirski als Genius des Ruhms vonEfisabeth Mg€e-Lebrun,' Niededeut*he Beitrege zur Kunstgeschichfe, XVl, 1977,87-88.

tt On the French reception of Le Voyage du jeune Anacharsis, see Olga Augustinos, FrenchOdysseys: Greee in Frcnch Tnvel Litenture fiom the Renaissanae to the Romantic Era,Baltimore, 1994,3748.

124 Aurora Vol. XI. 2010

the artist to conceive an elaborate "Greek suppe/' with Etruscan vases,Grecian drapery, and even a guitar that was made to resemble a 'golden

lyre."'" When given the opportunity to absorb the influences of ltaly, thisburgeoning fascination with venerated sources would become an eruditionthat led to the SibyL

In her Souvenirs, Vig6e Le Brun reports that she had wished to go toRome for several years, tut the considerable demand for her portraitsprevented such a journey.'' This claim is overshadowed by her retelling ofthe dramatic circumstances which led to her departure from France at theoutbreak of the Revolution ]n 1789. Her husband later declared that shetraveled to ltaly "to instruct and improve herself;" thus, he asserted that shewas not a traitorous 6migr6e, despite the timing of her vicissitude.22 There islittle doubt that she feared retribution for her role as court painter to Marie-Antoinefte and her continued royalist sympathies; however, this does nq!negate the obvious impact thai experiences in ltaly had on her art.23Notwithstanding his disdainful remarks, Benedict Nicholson's aforemen-tioned statement accurately identifies two of the artist's ltalian sources ofinspiration. In her memoir, Vig6e Le Brun asserts that Bologna yielded themost fertile of the ltalian schools and specifically names Guido Reni,Guercino, Domenichino, and the Caracci in this context.'" Domenichino'sso-called Cumaean Siby/ (1616-17; Rome, Museo e Galleria Borghese) i9the picture most often cited as the inspiration for Vig6e Le Brun's Sibyl'"While this work clearly motivated Angelica Kauffman to paint a copy (c.1763; Washington, DC, National Museum of Women in the Arts), Vig6e LeBrun's Srby/ actually bears very little resemblance to it. The simpleheaddress and emphatic upward glance, in which the moist whites of theeyes are conspicuous below the irises, are stylistically closer to Reni's half-length depictions of saints. Vig6e Le Brun might have seen his Saint Cecilia

m Vigee Le Brun, 193;"\yrc dofte;'

t' lbid., 2s6.

2 Quoted and translated in Sheriff, 223 and 315 n. 1: 'sfnsfruire et se pertectionner." In a letterto Hubert Robed, transcribed in her memoir, the artist admits that she would not have departedFrance "if... the revolution had not caused me to decide to leave Paris' ('si... la Evolutionn6tait pasvenue me d6terminer d quifter Pari{); see Vig6e Le Brun, 361.

23 Joseph Baiflio, Yig6e Le Brun at the Court of the Romanovs ," in Catherine the Grcat: Art forEmpirc, Masterpieces ftom the State Hermitage Museum, Russia, Nathalie Bondil, ed.,Montreal, 2005, 232-2U.

" Vig6" Le Brun, 351.

2t Baillio, 1982, 101; Sheriff, 239-240; Baillio et al., 2005, 328.

Andrew D. Hottle, Etisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl

(1606; Pasadena, Norton Simon Foundation), for example, which was in theBorghese collection untilthe early nineteenth century,'o but she was alreadyfamiliar with Reni's types before arriving in ltaly, as attested by he1 Poftraitof Madame Grand (t7gg; New York, Metropolitin Museum of Art).27 Despitethe similarities to Vig6e Le Brun's Srby/, both Madame Grand and thefemale figures of Reni have slight frames while her sibyl is comparativelyrobust. The figure's ample physique is thus closer to the female forms ofDomenichino and Guercino, as well as the sibyls painted by their Bolognesecontemporary, Elisabetta Sirani.'" Further, the generalization of the model'sfeatures, which are notably more idealized than those of Vig6e Le Brun'stypical portrait sitter,'o echoes the style characteristic of Domenichino,Guercino, and^Reni: an oval face, large bright eyes, full lips, and a smallrounded chin.o" Vig6e Le Brun undoubtedly followed the classicizingexample of her Bolognese predecessors, to the extent that she depicted thesibyl as an idealized youthful woman, although ancient accounts describethe prophetess as elderly."'

Another Cumaean Srby/, attributed to Domenichino and housed in thePinacoteca Capitolina (Fig. 4), has also been advanced as a source ofinspiration for Vig6e Le Brun's Sibyl."'This work was purchased by PopeBenedict XIV in 1750 for his Pinacoteca, where Vig6e Le Brun could easilyhave seen it during her Roman sojourn, and the existence of at least fourcopies by other artists attests to its appeal.33 Unlike the aforementionedpicture in the Galleria Borghese, there are more than superficial reasons forregarding thts Cumaean Sibyl as an influence. The figure looks upward inthe opposite direction of her scroll, her hair is dark, her turban is yellow, and

s Stephen Pepper, Guido Reni: L'Open compteta, London, 19U,225.

2t Baiffio, 1982, 49. The reviewer in Loterie pittorcque pour le Salon de 7783 recognized theinfluence of Reni and others in Vig6e Le Brun's Peace Bringing Back Abundance, noting that"this merely proves that she has copied none of them." Quoted and translated in idem, 42-43,

28 For Sirani's two paintings of sibyls (both 1660; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), seeJadranka Bentini and Vera Fortunati, Elisabetta Sirani: 'pittire ercina', 1638-1665, Bologna,2004,21+215.

a Sheriff, 245; Melissa Percival, 'The Expressive Heads of Elisabeth Vig6e Le 9run," Gazettedes Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., CXXXVlll, 2001,212.

3o Luigi Serra, Domenichino Zampieri ditto il Domenichino, Rome, 1 909, 61 .

tt J. J. Collins, "Sibylline Oracles (Second Century B.C. - First Century A.D.)," in The OldTestament P*udepignphia, James H. Chadeswoilh, ed., Garden City, 1983, 317.

tt Baillio et. al., 20b5, 328.

33 Richard E. Spear, Domenichino, New Haven, 1982, 1,232.

125

126 Aurora Vol. XI.2010

she wears a predominantly red garment; the same is true of Vig6e Le Brun'sSrby/. Further, and most compelling, is the inclusion of a Greek inscriptionon the unfurled scroll. Latin texts are routinely used in representations ofsibyls, but Greek is quite rare.il Domenichino's turbaned figure looksheavenward while gently holding a scroll, on which is inscribed the following:"ElE OEOZ OE MONOZ/EETIN Y1EPME\E@HE/A|ENHIf]O2."* Thisfragment is the first line of a proclamation attributed to the Cumaean sibyl inthe prologue of the Oracula Sibyllina. The surviving manuscripJ actuallyreads, "E6 0e6E, og 1t6vog 6pye4 unegteyt94g, aytv4tog,"* and igtranslated, "One God, who alone rules, exceedingly great unbegoften."o'Using a slightly altered transcription, the painted text replages dpyet ("rules")with eoriv ("is"), but the message is essentially unchanged."o By the time thisCumaean Sr'by/ was painted, the ancient oracular documents had long beenused to promote messianic and apocalyptic ideologies;3e thus, the seiectionof this particular text is most appropriate.

Vig€e Le Brun similarly availed herself of an ancient source withseemingly Christological implications. Her sibyl's scroll bears a carefully-lettered Greek inscription, rendered entirely in miniscule, which reads asfollows (Fig. 5):

... [illegible under scroll]vrq YEVEq €K ...oupqvou Trpo...yov... [illegible under hand] r...

s For example, all eight of Guercino's sibyl paintings include Latin inscriptions. See David M.Stone, Guercrho: Cataloga ampleto, Florence, 1991, 176, 209, 233, 235,277-278,2e'l-282,and291.

3s Spear, 232.

* Johannes Gefrcken, ed., Die Oracuta Sibytlina, Leipzig, '1902,5.

37 Trans. in Collins, 329.

tu Spear, 232 translates the passage as "There is only one God, infinite [and] unborn."

3e Arnaldo Momigliano, "From the Pagan to the Christian Sibyl: Prophecy as History ofRefigion," in fte Uses of Grcek and Latin: Histoical Essays,Xll, Wafturg Institute Surueys andIexfs, A. C. Dionisotti et al., eds., London, 1988, 6. R.S. Conway, "The Messianic ldea inVirgif,' in Wryil's Messianic Eclogue, Conway, ed., London, 1907, 11, notes that the comingchild and the Golden Age were "interpreled in only one way' for fourteen centuries. For oneargument about who the child might have been, see W. Warde Fowler, 'The Ghild of thePoem,' in Viryil's Messianic Eclogue, Conway, ed., London, 1907, 49-85. Generally, the sibylswere given Christian significance in subsequenl periods. For example, Vano listed ten sibyls,but the number was increased to twelve in the Middle Ages in order to parallel the Apostles.See Collins. 317-318.

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Yigde Le Brun's Sibyl

The middfe two lines can feasibly be read as "yCd v€v€d sK oupqv6u," whitchmeans a "new generation from heaven." NCd is a form of vtog ('neW' or"young") and yeied refers to progeny.oo Oupavdu is the genitive of' oupav6g("heaven,'"sky") and is preceded by er, a construction used specifically inthis grammatical context to denote that something originated or emergedfrom elsewhere. The meanings of the remaining portions, npo... tlov..., aredifficult to establish because the words are incomplete. llpo- is a prefix thatusually indicates "before" or implies advancement or projection. foy- is alinguistic root that is limited to words relating to parenthood (yove- andyovt-), offspring (y6vog), and the knees (yova- and yovu-).* ' The generativenature of the preceding phrase would suggest that these fragments alsoallude to sucression through familial language. The legible words on thesibyl's scroll do not appear together in the surviving Greek manuscripts ofthe Oracula Sibyllina." lnstead, they are a modern Greek translation of thefollowing portion of a well-known passage from Virgil's fourth Eclogue (line7): "iam nova progenies caelo demittitur a/fo' ('now a new generationdescends from heaven on high'). This especially apt Virgilian quotationrepresents, according to its ancient author, "the final age that was sung of atCumae" (Ecl. 4.4)."' From ancient times, it was widely accepted that Virgilrefened to the Cumaean sibyl, although the meaning of this line is hardlyunambiguous.* In fact, the entire Eclogue, with its -ryptic prediction of anew Golden Age brought forth by.-the birth of a child, has promptedinterpretation for nearly two millennia.*"

While the artistic and intellectual climate in ltaly seems to haveinfluenced Vig6e Le Brun's choice of a Greek sibylline inscription, she wasprobably aware of other artists who painted subjects accompanied bysuitable Greek text. A similar portrayal of an inspired author was executed in1783 by Vig6e Le Brun's contemporary, Ad6laTde Labille-Guiard. Her

127

* Christian Tobias Damm, Novum lexicon graecum: Etymologicum et rcale, cui prc basisu6sfrafae sunt concordantiae et elucidationes Homericae, London, 1824, ll, 309-3'10. l'eved isincorrec{fy transcribed as ye,yva and translated as 'powef in Baillio et al., 2005, 328.

o'Damm, 11,323-325.

a2 The extant manuscripts are transcribed in Geffcken.

" Trans. in M. Owen Ler-, Death and Rebirth in Vitgit's Arcadia, Albany, 1989, 81: "tJltinaCumaei venit iam carminis aetas."

{ Servius asserted that the line identifies the Cumaean sibyl, while Probus believed thatCumaei carminis refers to Hesiod. See H. J. Rose, fte Eclogues of Vegil, Berkeley, 1942,172-176.

15 lbid.. 162.

t28 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

Poftrait of Jean-Frangois Ducis (1783; Paris, Com€die-Frangaise) depictsthe tragic poet crowned with laurel, wearing a. classicizing costume, andwriting his Le Rai L6ar and CEdipe chez Admdte."o The titles of these Frenchmanuscripts are recorded in Greek on Ducis' open scrolls. This at onceemphasizes the seriousness of the writer's work and asserts his position asthe latest exponent of the esteemed tradition of _fagic drama whose originslie in the ancient poets of the Peloponnesus.*' Labille-Guiard, however,inaccuratefy transcribed the Greek letters in Oedipus' name as "OIAIPYE."Transliterated, the text is "Oedirus" because she has mistakenly used P(rho) for n (pi); moreover, the final ̂ I (sigma) is wriften in reverse. lf Vig6e LeBrun knew this painting of the French poet, she certainly dj^d not imitate hercontemporary's indiscriminate rendering of Greek letters."o lnstead, Vig6eLe Brun carefully and accurately printed the inscription on the scroll of herSibyl."" In addition to Labille-Guiard's laudatory portrait of Ducis, Frenchartists occasionally represented classical history subjects that bear Greekinscriptions. At the Salon of 1779, tor example, Noel Hall6 exhibitedCornelia, Mother of the Gracchi (1779; Montpellier, Mus6e Fabre), in whichyoung Caius canies an open scroll that reveals a passage from Homer'slliad.'" The Greek text, which consists of fragments of the first two lines ofthe ancient epic, reads as follows: "lM1vrl ae6e 0ea/l7r7Aen6[eu]/AyrA4og/auAopevl7vl.' Hall6 omitted the diacritical marks, but his quotation otherwiseduplicates its source. The inclusion of Homeric text in a depiction of aRepublican Roman story is explained by the educational theme. Both thepainting and its pendant, Agesilaus Playing with His Children (1779;Montpellier, Mus6e Fap-re), address the eighteenth-century emphasis on theeducation of children."' Cornelia's sons €rry scrolls as evidence of their

* Anne Marie Passez, Adhtaide Labitle-GuiaN 1749-1803: Biognphie et catatogue nisonn| deson oeuwe, Paris, 1973, 127-128.

ot Mark Ledbury, Visions of Tragedy: Jean-Frangois Ducis and Jacques-Louis David,"E ighteenth-Ce ntury Stud ies, XXXVI l, 2004, 555.

€ The painting, which was commissioned by the Comtesse d'Angiviller, does not appear tohave been exhibited at the Salon. lt was given to the Com6die-Frangaise by the sitter'snephew, Louis Ducis, in 1U1. See Passez, 127 . The artist was familiar with the work of Ducisand later befriended him after her return to France in '1802. See Vig6e Le Brun, 648 and743.

tt When a lithograph of Vig6e Le Brun's painting was executed in the nineteenth century, theunidentified printmaker failed to copy the Greek text accurately. The print is illustrated in lanJenkins and Kim Sloan. Vases and Volcanoes: Sir Wlliam Hamifton aN His Coltection.London, 1996,271.

* Michef Hitaire et al., eds., Frcnch Paintings from the Mus6e Fabre, Montpeltier, Canbena,2003, 182.

ut lbid., 181.

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl 129

dedication to study, which serves as a counterpoint to the materialisticconcerns of their mothefs unnamed visitor, who proudly displays her jewels.Just as Hall6 used the lliad to reinforce the message of his Roman subject,Mg6e Le Brun appropriated Virgil to give credence to her depiction of aHellenic one.

Closer to the theme of Vig6e Le Brun's Srby/ is Kaufhan's Sappho,lnspired by Love, Writing an Qde to Aphrodite (Fig. 6), another represen-tation of an ancient woman receiving divine inspiration. Kauffman fittinglydepicted the lyric poet holding alaper inscribed in Greek with a portion ofher so-caffed "Ode to Aphrodite."o'The passage, "EA9e pot xat vuurlaAenavfielAuoov eilptptpvav,' is from the first two lines of the final stanza, in whichthe poet implores the goddess to deliver her from unbearable sotrow. At thismoment, Kauffman's Sappho looks to Love and gestures toward theremaining blank area of the page, as if awaiting a message that will allowher to complete the verse. Vig6e Le Brun is unlikely to have seen thisparticular painting because it was executed while Kauffman lived in Englandand was probably acquired by John Baker Holroyd, later Baron Sheffield,shortly after it was painted.oo Perhaps she knew Kauffman's full-lengthversion of the sqme subject, an engraving of which was published by JohnBoydell in 1778,4 but it i! also possible thit she learned about similaiworksfrom Kauffman herself. The two painters met in Rome soon after Vig6e LeBrun's anival. The latter was clearly aware of her contemporary's fame, asattested in her memoir, although her response to Kauffman was not entirelypositive:

I saw Angelica Kauffman, whom t greatly wished to meet. I foundher very interesting, aside from her fine talent, because of her witand knowledge... She talked with me easily and at length duringthe two evenings that I spent with her. Her conversation isagreeable; she is tremendously educated, but lacking enthusiasm,which, in view of my limited knowledge, failed to excite me.

t Peter A. Tomory, ?ngelica Kaufrnan - 'Sappho,'" Burtington Magazine, CXll[ 1971,275:,Bettina Baumgeftel, Angelika Kaufrmann, Diisseldorf, 1998, 202.

s3 Tomory, 275.

* lbid.,2ls-276. For the full-length painting, see Angela Rosenthal, Angelica Kauffman: Art andSensibility, New Haven, 2006, 160.

130 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

Angelica possesses some paintings by the greatest masters and Isaw several of her own works at her home; I liked her sketchesmore than her paintings because of their Titianesque color.ss

As in Kauffrnan's Sappho, the fragmentary Greek inscription in Vig6eLe Brun's Srby/ is central to the characterization of her subject. lt conveysthe prophetic pre-Christian revelation that unmistakably distinguishes thefigure as the Cumaean sibyl.s6 The Virgilian messige is deliberatelyemphasized by the composition of the painting. As the sibyl holds the scrollagainst her tablet, a portion falls into the viewer's line of sight, its curled topgently echoed by the shadowy arc of the opposite end. She looks to theupper right, but her head and torso lean toward the scroll, which is visuallybalanced by the murky hollow of the cave on the other side of the canvas.lnto the darkened grotto comes the light of divine revelation, streaming fromthe upper left to illuminate fully the seer's head, hand, and unfurledprophetic declaration. Her ephemeralvision is now manifested concretely astext.

Although other artists utilized Greek inscriptions, Vig6e Le Brun'sdecision to render a Virgilian quotation in Greek, rather than the originalLatin, is a significant and seemingly unprecedented departure. The ap-propriateness of the inscribed prophecy to her sibylline subject isunequivocal, yet Vig6e Le Brun could simply have followed the artisticconvention of using Latin inscriptions, particularly when the source wasalready written in that language. Greek, however, lends a kind ofauthenticity to her depiction of this subject from history. An oracle, written inGreek, was attributed to the Cumaean sibyl in ancient times. Romantradition held that it had been highly valued since the days of the Etruscans.This prized manuscript was destroyed by fire several decades before VirgiJwrote his Eclogue, so it is unclear whether he actually knew its contents."

5u Vigee Le Brun, 365-366: "J'ai 6tE voir Angelica Kaufmann, gue j'avais un exil€me dflsir deconnaitrc. Je l'ai fiouvAe bien int6rcssaile, e paft son beau tabnt, par son espnt ef sesconnaissances.... Eile a caus6 avec moi beauaup et tfts bien, pendent les deux soiftes quel'ai passdes chez elle. Sa conversation est douce; elle a prcdigieusement d'instruction, maisaucun enthousiasme, ce qui, vu mon peu de savoir, ne m'a point 6lectrisee./Angelica possddequelques tableau des plus gnnds maitres, et j'ai vu chez elle plusieurs des ses ouvrages,' sesesgur.sses m'ont fait plus de plaisir que ses tableaux, parce qu'elles sont d'une couleurtitianesque." The lack of inspiration may allude to Kauffinan's particular style of neoclassicalpainting. Vig6e Le Brun evidently appreciated the drawings because they were closer to theVenetian manner that informed her own work through the influence of Peter Paul Rubens.

$ The subject is identified as the Persian sibyl, without explanation, in From Butinone toChagall,67.

ut Rose, 171. Roland G. Austin,'Virgil and the Sibyl," The Ctassical Quarterly, XXl, 1927, 10G.105, argues that Virgil's use of rhyme accords with those of the texts in the Oracula Sibyllina;

Andrew D. Hottle, Etisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl

Nevertheless, the knowledge that the Cumaean sibyl had uttered propheticGreek words was transmitted to posterity. For Vig6e Le Brun and hercontemporaries, the exact source of Virgil's text, if one ever existed, wasvery likely irrelevant. More important was an awareness, for the sake of aneighteenth-century sense of accuracy, that the sibyl was a Hellenic woman;thus, the scroll in Vig6e Le Brun's painting bears the prophecy of a GoldenAge in the sibyl's native tongue, not Virgil's Latin.* This nuance is all themore compelling because Vig6e Le Brun did not know Greek but produceda legible-indeed, perfectly-leftered-Greek inscription. For this, she probablyrelied on the antiquarian knowledge of Sir William Hamilton, the Britishdiplomat whose mistress served as the model for the sibyl, or FrederickHervey, 4th Earl of Bristol. Hamilton and Bristol were both educated at theRoyal College of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as theWestminster- School,se where Latirl and Greef

'wera integral to the

curriculum in the eighteenth century;"" however, Hamilton's formal educationended when he was fifteen,"' while Bristol attended Corpus ChristiCollegein Cambridge and showed particular aptitude for foreign languages."'Mg6eLe Brun was on friendly terms with both men dgring her stay in the vicinity ofNaples, where she began her Srby/ in 1791.oo She painted the portrait ofLord Bristol in 1790 (Horringer, lckworth House, The National Trust), thesame year that she first depicted Emma Hart, the future Lady Hamilton.*

thus, he concludes that Virgil "had before him the Sibylline Oracles on which to model hisprophetic poem" (105).

s Greek translations of Virgil were rare, but they existed already in imperial Rome. Polybiustranslated Virgil's Aeneid into Greek and Arrian translated the Georgics. See Simon Swain,'Anian the Epic Poet," Joumal of Hellenic Sfudbs, CXl, 1991, 211-214. For his Life ofConstantine, Eusebius translated many lines of Virgil's fourth Eclogue into Greek. See lvar A.Heikel, ed., Eusebius Wetue,Lepizig, 1902, l, 181-187.

5e David Constantine, Fields of Firc: A Life of Sir Wliam Hamilton, London, 2001,2-3.

uo John D. Carleton, Westminster Sclroo/: A History, London, 1965, 31-32. ln this context, theauthor also referc to a letter from Lord Chesterfield to Philip Stanhope, in which Chesterfielddeclares, "Pray, mind your Greek particularly, for to know Greek very well is to be reallylearned."

61 Constantine, 3.

t'Brian Fothergill, The Mitrcd Eart: An Eighteenth-Century Ewnfnc, London, 1974, 17-18.

s The Srby/ was completed in 1792. On 19 January 1792, Anne Pitt recorded in her diary ihatonly the hands of the Slbyl which was in Vig6e Le Brun's studio in Rome, remained to befinished. See Jenkins and Sloan, 272.

s For her Poftrait of Emma Hamitton as Aiadne (1790; private collection), see Baillio, 1982,87-90; Ulrike lftershagen, Lady Hamiltons Aftitilden, Mainz am Rhein, 1999, 224-229.

1 3 1

132 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

The artist's broadening ltalianate experience is overtly realized in thelandscape settings of these and other portraits that she painted in the early1790s. Mount Vesuvius is a prominent background element in her portrait ofLord Bristol, wh12re it fittingly characterizes the sitter's penchant for dailyvolcanic climbs;* as in Grand Tour portraiture, this motif asserts Bristol'scultural experience and erudition.* Either Sir William Hamilton or LordBristol, both of whom were prominent and learned British expatriates, couldeasily have aided Vig6e Le Brun in the creation of her Siby/ by securing orsupplying a Greek translation of the Virgilian source.

In addition to the pertinent prophetic Greek text, Vig6e Le Brun situatedher sibyl in a rocky brown cavern that aptly characterizes the site where theprophetess divulged her mysterious revelations. The grotto dwelling of theCumaean sibyl is noted in ancient texts, including Virgil's Aeneid, but israrely depicted by artists;"' Vig€e Le Brun's Bolognese sources prefenednondescript architectural spaces. The artist was apparently inspired by theGrotto of Posillipo, the famed-but almost certainly erroneous-site ofVirgil's tomb, as well as other rocky areas in the environs of Naples. In herSouvenirs, the artist enthusiastically declares, "One of my greatestpleasures was to go strolling on the beautiful slopes of Mount Posillipo,beneath which is situated the grotto of the same name, which is amagnificenl structure about a mile in length and built, it is believed, by theRomans.'* She next tells her reader that Virgil's tomb is there, but she has

st Vigee Le Brun, 399; Gervase Jackson-Stops, ed., The Trcasure Houses of Britain: FiveHundrcd Years of Pivate Patuonqe dnd Aft Collecting, Washington, DC, 1985, 276. Accordingto the latter, Lord Bristol is said to have "caused eruptions wherever he went." Around the sametime that she painted Lord Bristol's portrait, Vig€e Le Brun effectively used the volcano to give aclassical slant to her painting of Emma Hamilton as a bacchante (Fig. 8). She later used thesame motif in her portrait of Princess Pelagia Sapieha (1794; Wacaw, The Royal Castle). SeeLaurie Wintes, ed., Leonardo da Vinci and the Splendor of Poland: A History of Collecting andPabonage, Milwaukee, 2002, 178-180.

s On Grand Tour portraiture, see Edgar Peters Bowron and Peter Bjdrn Kerber, PompeoBaloni: Prine of Painters in Eighteenth-Century Rome, New Haven, 2OO7 , 37-87 .

0t On the early descriptions of the sibyl's cave, see H. W. Parke, Sby/s and Sibytline Prcphecyin C/assrbal Antiquity, B. C. McGing, ed., London and New York, 1988, 71-81. MassimoStanione, who was mostly adive in Naples, executed a three-quarterJength painting of a sibyl(c. 1630; Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphilj) in which the figure appears in a vague brown spacethat evokes a qrve. An inegular opening with a view of the sky occupies nearly one4uarter ofthe canvas at the upper left. He used the same composition and a similar environment for hisViryin and Child (c. 1640-1645; Paris, Mus6e du Louvre).

* Vigee Le Brun, 419: "lJn de mes grand ptaisirs 6tait d'atler me promener sur le beau coteaude Pausilippe, sous lequel est plac6e la grctte du mdme nom, qui est un magniftque ouvraged'un mille de longueur, et qu'on voit bien avoir 6t6 fait par le Romains.'

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl 133

seen none of the laurel bushes that allegedly grow from the grave.6s In hermemoir, Vig6e Le Brun refers to Virgil several times when recounting herexperiences in ltaly. Among her adventures was an excursion to Procida,where she saw "Cape Miselo, the Acheron, the Elysian Fields; in short, allplaces described by Virgil."'" She also traveled to Mantua, the region of hisreputed birthplace, which she identified as 'Virgil country."" These are, infact, _t!e two locations most closely associated with the ancient Romanpoet.72

It is no coincidence that Vig6e Le Brun commenced her Siby/ aroundthe time that she visited the area of Virgil's presumed burial site." Theancient Greek settlement of Cumae is found nearby, lying just to thenorthwest of Naples; thus, the Hellenic sibyl and the Roman writerconverged in the Neapolitan countryside. In her Souvenirs, the artistperceives the blending of these cultures at Procida, where she compareslocal yvomen to the Greeks, then reports her visits to places described byVirgil.Ta The rocky environment in Vigee Le Brun's painting closelyresembles the alleged tomb and other cavernous outcroppings in the region,which she used efectively to characterize the topography of the sibyl'slegendary grotto.7s The 6ppearance of such cavei wai recorded, for

0e The supposed burial site can be seen in Virgil's Tomb: Sun Brcaking through a Cloud (1785;Belfast, Ulster Museum) and five other paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby. See Judy Egedon,Wrightof Detuy, NewYork, 1990, 120-122.

to Vig6e Le Brun, 413: "le cap Mysene, t'Achhrcn, Ies Champs-Etysfies, enfin, tout ce gueViryile d6crit." "Champs-Elys6es" ('Elysian Fields") refers to the Campi Flegrei, or PhlegraeanFields. ln a letter to Madame du Barry, wriften in the summer of 1790, Mg6e Le Brun devotedtwo substantial paragraphs to her experiences in Naples. Herein she also reports her visits toPosillipo and the sites described by Vhgil. She tells Madame du Barry, "There, I alsoexperienced antiquity by traveling the places that Virgil described so well" ("J'y ai fait aussi mesarurses d'antiguit6s, en patwurant les lieux gu'a si bien ddcrits Virgile").The entire letter istranscribed and accepted as authentic in Nolhac, 166-169.

7r Mgee Le Brun, 441:"patrie de Viryite."

t'A. J. Gossage, ? Visit to Virgil Country,' Grcece and Rome,2d ser., Vl, vol. l, 1959, 86. Seeafso L. S. Hitchcock, "Selective Topography," The Classical Joumal XXVlll, 1933, 505-514.

73 The sittings took place at a house in Caserta, not far from Naples, which was rented forEmma Hart by SirWilliam Hamilton. See Vig€e Le Brun, 403.

tt |bid.,413.

tu Vigee Le Brun reGrs to 'several studies of Vesuvius and the vicinity of Naples" ("Ptusieurc6tudes du V6suve et des envircns de NapleC') in her list of works. See Mg€e Le Brun, 563.These have not been located and their subjects are unknown, so it is not clear whether sheexecuted any topographical views of caverns in the region. Her Portnit of Pincess MariaJosefa Hermenegilde von Esterhazy as Aiadne (1793; Vaduz, Palais Liechtenstein, PrincelyCollection) is notably set in a cave that is similar to the one in the Siby/. Although the former

134 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

example, in the paintings and drawings of the English artist Joseph Wrightof Derby; these include A Grctto in the Kngdom of Naples, with Banditti(1778; private collection), Cauem, near Naples (1774; private collection),and Cavem, Evening (Fig. 7).'" Not coincidentally, Vig6e Le Brun's fivedayexpedition to Procida was undertaken in the company of Sir WilliamHamilton, Emma Hart and her mother, and some muiicians.TT In fact,Hamilton's casino at Posillipo, christened the Villa Emma, was located infront of cliffs and grottoes. Situated across the bay from Vesuvius, the villahad a semicircular second-story balcony, which provided a view of thevolcano but was also rather curiously constructed atop an outcropping ofrock with a natural passageway; this aperture can be seen in contemporaryfandscape paintings of the area, including Xavier dell Gattia's View of theVitla Emma at Posittipo (1795; private collection).78 Vig6e Le Brun some-times dined there and drew two expressive heads in charcoal on a door.TsWhile visiting England in the early nineteenth century, she was surprised tofind the same drawings in the collection of the Earl of Wanrick, where oneremains;they had been removed from the Villa Emma and later auctioned.so

Vig6e Le Brun's connection to William Hamilton's circle was evidentlyimportant, if not essential, to the creation of her Slbyi yet it ironicallyprovided the modelwhose reputation has eclipsed the iconographic depth ofthe painting. Perhaps the greatest impediment to a full assessment of Vig6eLe Brun's Sibyl is an enduring fascination with Lady Hamilton. Emma Hartwas a person of low social status who became the mistress of CharlesGreville. In 1786, he sent her to ltaly for an allegedly short visit, but was infact executing a plan to dispose of her by encouraging his uncle, Sir WilliamHamilton, to take her as his mistress. Emma Hart, who became LadyHamilton in 1791, drew the negative attention of polite society for her lack of

has an opening to allow a glimpse of distant vessels and the rocky space is laqe enough toa@ommodate a full-length portrait, the craggy environment in each painting envelops the figureand each has a cluster of dangling vines to the upper left of the woman's head. On the portraitof Princess von Esterhazy, see Reinhold Baumstark, Maderyieoes fiom the Collection of thePin@s of Liechtenstein, Robert Erich Wolf, trans., New York, 1981 , 312-313.

76 For these and other cavern paintings by Wright of Derby, see Egerton, 158-165.

tMg6e Le Brun,412.

78 Jenkins and Sloan. 13G137.

7e Vigee Le Brun, 405.406; she refers to "two small expressive heads' ("deux petites tfltesd'exprcssiorf). On Vig6e Le Brun's explorations of fdfes d'exprcssion, a rather ambiguous typeof emotive head that was prevalent among artisb in the eighteenth century, see Percival, 203-216.

m Jenkins and Sloan, 270-2711, Vig6e Le Brun, 406 n. 165 (original note by Vig6e Le Brun).

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl 135

sophistication; however, the performance of her entertaining "attitudes,'under the direction of William Hamilton, somewhat improved her reputation.The "attitudes" were pantomimic postures and gestures-with the aid ofshawls, limited accessories, and the occasional child-that replicatedPompeian wall paintings, ancient sculptures, and other celebrated works ofart."' Lady Hamilton's subsequent infamy was the result of her scandalousaffair with Lord Horatio Nelson. When writing her Souyenrs several decadeslater, the septuagenarian Vig6e Le Brun was complicit in perpetuating thestories of Emma Hamilton. While excluding commentary on the iconographyof her Srbyd the artist describes at length Lady Hamilton's uncultivatednature, famous "aftitudes," crude manner of dress, affair with Lord Nelson,eventual obesity, and impoverished demise.82 The lack of information aboutthe Srby/ is not unexpected because Vig6e Le Brun's memoir generally failsto elucidate the deeper meanings of her paintings;oo nonetheless, heremphasis on Lady Hamilton's life has inadvertently encouraged historians toregard her Sibyl as a portrait and to call it Emma Hamilton as a Siby/ or aslight variation thereof.

This is not the only instance in which Lady Hamilton's character hasinfluenced the reading of a painting for which she modeled. She is easilyrecognized in the work of Joshua Reynolds and George Romney, amongothers. For Reynolds and Romney, the commingling of her identity and thecontent of their paintings began in the eighteenth century. When JohnRaphael Smith acquired the rights to publish engraved reproductions of theirpaintings of her, he drew attention to the model by issuing $ifferent prints insimilar sizes and formats, which prompted comparison.* For Romney,Emma Hart frequently served as the model for single-figure allegorical,mythological, religious, or literary paintings; however, she also appears inmulti-figure compositions, oil sketches, and a few straightfonrvard portraits.o"This mutability, combined with Lady Hamilton's fame, complicates any

ut On Lady Hamihon's "attitudeE," see Kirsten Gram Holmstr6m, Monodrama, Aftitudes,Tableaux Vivants: Sfudrbs on Some Trends in Theatrical Fashion, 1770-1815, Uppsala, 1967,11G140; lttershagen, 17-70; lsmene Lada-Richards, "'Mobile Statuary:' Refractions ofPantomime Dancing from Callistratus to Emma Hamilton and Andrew Ducrow," IntemationalJoumal of the Crassical Tndition,Nl ,2003, 3-37.

ut Vigee Le Brun, 40G405.

a Baillio, 1982, 6. See also Gita May, ? Woman Artist's Legacy: The Autobiography ofElisabeth Vig6e Le Brun," in Eighteenth-Century Women and the Afis, Frederick M. Keener andSusan E. Lorsch, eds., New York, 1 988, 22+235; Sheriff, 7-9.

* Tim Cfayton, "'Figures of Fame:' Reynolds and the Printed lmage," in Joshua Reynolds: TheCrcation of Celeb;riU, Mailin Postle, ed., London, 2005, 55-56.

85 Alex Kidson, Georye Romney 173+1802, Princeton, 2002, 167 .

136 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

attempt to separate the roles of artist's model and portrait sitter. Withrespect to the paintings by Vig6e Le Brun, a physiognomic variability isevident when the Sibyl is compared to her Portrait of Emma Hamifton asAiadne (1790; private collection) and Portrait of Emma Hamilton as aBacchante (Fig. 8). The latter two works follow an eighteenth-centuryfashion for the portrait ddguis6, in which the sitter is dressed as amythological or historical figure.o" Intended to be likenesses, these paintingsfeature Lady Hamilton's high cheekbones and heart-shaped face, as well asher celebrated flowing tresses. By contrast, Vig6e Le Brun's Srby/ ischaracterized by an oval face, a small rounded chin, and a headdress thatnearly conceals her hair, all of which are consistent with the classicizingmanner of her aforementioned Bolognese sources.

The conflation of Vig6e Le Brun's subject and the model's identity isfurther complicated by contemporaneous representations of EmmaHamilton's "attitudes." Tommaso Piroli's series of engravings after the linedrawings by Friedrich Rehberg, published in 1794 as Drawings faithfullycopied from Nature at Naples and with permission dedicated to the RightHonourable Sir William Hamilton, illustrates twelve "attitudes" performed byLady Hamilton. Years later, Vig6e Le Brun observed, "one could havecopied her different poses and her different expressions to make a gallery ofpaintings; there is, in fact, .? collection drawn by Fr6d6ric Reimberg [src],which has been engraved.'o' One plate in the Piroli-Rehberg series depictsEmma Hamilton in the *aftitude" of a sibyl (Fig. 9). She wears the samesimple dress, characterized by a high waist and embroidered circularneckline, that appears in Mg6e Le Brun's painting.ss She also has a longshawl wrapped around her head to form a generously draping turban, akinto the one that is clearly visible in Vig6e Le Brun's Siby/, and she holds apartly-rolled scrollwith scribbles to indicate text. The dress appears in manyof the Piroli-Rehberg engravings, which suggg^sts that Lady Hamiltonactually wore it when performing her "attitudes."o' lt can also be seen in

* On the poftrait d6guis6, see David Wakefield, Frcnch Eighteenth-Century Painfing, NewYork, 19&4,6163.

tt Vig6e Le Brun, 402: "on aunit pu copier ses diffirentes poses et *s ditr6rcntes expressrbnspour fairc toute une galerie de tableaux; il en existe m6me un rccueil, dessinf par F6d6icReimberg [sic], gu'on a gravd." Neither the Piroli-Rehberg engravings nor Vig6e Le Brun's Siby/convey any sense of Lady Hamilton's skill in transitioning from one characterization to another,yet this metamorphosis most appealed to those who witnessed her "atlitudes." See Holmstrom,120; Sherifi, 245. The individual plates in the Piroli-Rehberg series are discussed at length inIttershagen, 72-110.

tt M"ry D. Sheritr, 1/ith Music and Flowers: Vig€e.Lebrun's Russian Campaign," in The Val A.Brcwning Collection: A Seledion of Old Master Parhfihgs, Sheila D. Muller, ed., Salt Lake City,2001 ,105 .

8e Piroli's other plates show her in a tunic. See Holmstrdm, 121.

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Yigde Le Brun's Sibyl 137

Pietro Antonio Novelli's undated ink drawings of Lady Hamilton's'attitudes,"which were probably executed in Venice at the end of 1791.- Further,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described Emma Hart's'attitudes" in 1787,noting that her "Grecian garmenf' was made by Sir William Hamilton.el As arenowned collector of antique vases, Hamilton was certainly acquainted withmodes of ancient Greek dress. With such an authority at hand, perhapsVig6e Le Brun wisely appropriated Lady Hamilton's attire when creating herSrby/. Unlike the garments worn by the sibyls of her ltalian predecessors,the dress in Vig6e Le Brun's painting has a classical simplicity that suits hersubject.

At one point in her Souyenirs, Vig6e Le Brun seems to take credit forthe costume of her Slbyl. After commenting on Lady Hamilton's un-remarkable apparel, she explains, "l had her make some dresses like theones that I wore, in order to paint her as I pleased...; to them, she addedshawls to drape herself, which she knew how-lo do.""' Elsewhere, the artistdistances the painting from Emma Hamilton.s3 She writes that she "styledMadame Hart's hair... with a shawl twisted around her head in the mannerof a turban, so that one end hung to form a drape;" the Duchesse de Fleuryand the Princesse Joseph de Monaco, who were present for the third andfinal sitting, "found her ravishing," but when Lady Hamilton later dressed fordinner, she was nearly unrecognizable after her "vulgar toilette."s lf theaforementioned works by Piroliand Novelliare reliable documents, Vig6e Le

e0 Jenkins and Sloan, 259. One sheet is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.Thomas Lawren@ also showed Emma Hamilton wearing fabric that is wrapped like a turbanand falls voluminously behind her (1791; London, British Museum). See Jenkins and Sloan,2il.

er fn Holmstrom, 11o:"giechisch Gewand."

e2 Vigee Le Brun, 402: "Je tui fis fairc des ro0es comme elles que je poftais, pour peindre dmon aise...; elle y ajouta des schals pour se draper, ce qu'elle entendait trds bien."

e3 Thb was first observed by Sherifi, '1996, 245.

s Vig6e Le Brun, 4A3: "EIle manquait de toumurc et s'habillait bts mal, dls qu'ils'agissaif defairc une toilette vulgaire... La duchesse de Fleury et Ia prinesse Joseph de Monacaassisfaient d la troisidme #ance, qui fut la demiCre. J'avais coiff€ madame Hart (elle n'6taitpas enco,e mari6e) avec un schall toum6 autour de sa tate en forme de tuhan, dont un bouttombait et faisait dnprie. @fte coifrure I'embellissait au pint que ces dames la trcuvaientrayissanfe. Le chevalier nous ayant toutes invit6es d diner, madame Hart passa dans sesappartements pour fairc sa toilette, et lorsqu'elle vint nous rcfiouver au salon, refte toilette, qui6tait des plus communes, I'avait tellement changde d son dAsavantage, que ces deux dameseurent toutes /es pelnes du monde d la rcconnaitre."

138 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

Brun must have exaggerated her role in clothing her model.es In fact, theswathe and its accompanying drape were used by both Emma Hamilton andVig6e Le Brun for their respective compositions, yet neither invented it. lnher portraits of the Comtesse du Molay (1788; Paris, Mus€e Nissim deCamondo) and Countess Ekaterina Skavronskaya (1790; Paris, Mus6eJacquemart-Andr6), among others, Vig6e Le Brun had already employedturbanlike headdresses with flowing diaphanous scarves. Similar head-dresses are also found in a number of earlier works, such as OrazioGentileschi's Srby/ (c.1635-38; Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll,The Royal Collection Trust).

Despite the problematic boundary between Lady Hamilton and theSrby{ Vig6e Le Brun implicitly conveyed the true subject of her painting byrepeatedfy referring to the work as "ma Sibylle"-"6y Sibyl"-in herSouvenirs. She certainly regarded the Slby/ as a history painting, asopposed to a traditional portrait, and identified it with her own talent, not thenotorious Emma Hamilton.- Her successful appropriation of Bolognesesources, Virgilian text, and Neapolitan landscape is indirectly conveyed inher story of a group of students in Parma who thought her Siby/ was "madeby one

-of the masters of their school."sT Notwithitanding her apparently

hyperbolic account of one student throwing himself at her feet, Vig6e LeBrun's claim emphasizes the importance that she placed on her ltalianateeducation as a means to elevate her art.* Furthermore, she regarded thepainting as her chef d'oeuvre, despite the misleading emphasis that her

tu fn this context, Jenkins and Sloan, 271 nate that Romney had earlier depicted Lady Hamiltonwith a length of fabric tied around her head and draped down her back (c. 1785; London,National Portrait Gallery). The effec{ is, however, unlike that of Vig6e Le Brun's SrbyL

* Baillio, 1982, 101; Sheriff, 1996,239. In her list of paintings, which has numerousinaccuracies and omissions, Vigee Le Brun curiously identified the Srbyl as The same [LadyHamiltonl as a sibyl, tull-length" (La mdme en sibylle en piefl. See Vig6e Le Brun, 563. Asoriginally published, the inventory of works was divided among the three volumes of the Vig6eLe Brun, with a list conesponding to the years addressed in each book. In the first volume, herworks of the 1780s are divided among "Portraits" and "Tableaux d'histoirc." In the secondvolume, which includes the list of paintings from her time in ltaly, the artist did not distinguishbetween history paintings and portraits. All works, including the aforementioned studies ofVesuvius and its vicinity, are indiscriminately combined under the heading "Liste de Poftrcits."Elsewhere, Vig€e Le Brun describes it as the painting of the Siby{ which I made in Naples,after Lady Hamilton' (le tableau de la Sibylle, que j'avais fait d Naples, apds lady Hamilton"), aremark that acknowledges her role as a model without identifoing the work as a portrait. SeeVig6e Le Brun,439.

tt Vig6e Le Brun, 440: "fait par un des maltres de leur 6cole."

$ Sheriff, 1996,227 observes that this and other aspects of the Souyenirs echo earlier talesabout artists as geniuses. The author also notes that Vig6e Le Brun's story "plays into acampaign to associate her talent with ltaly."

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl 139

memoir places on Lady Hamilton's biography^^and the Srby/ is mentionedmore than any other painting in her Souvenirs.* The artist's-contemporariesundoubtedly realized how frignly she valued the work.lm When WilliamHamilton sold the copy of the sibyl's head that Vig6e Le Brun had given tohim, the Christie's sale catalogue described it as a "Head of a Sybil [src]painted by herself, from the large Picture which she calls her Masterpiece,and which Travels with her."''' lndeed, her Slbyl was proudly displayed inDominique Vivant-Denon's apartment in Venice (1792), the salon of PrinceKaunitz in Vienna (1792), the gallery of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden(1794), Vig6e Le Brun's studio in Saint Petersburg (from 179^5), the Salon of1798 in Paris, and the artist's atelier in London (1803-1805). '*

According to the artist, Princess Ekaterina Dolgoroukaya re.spondedenthusiastically to the Siby/ and asked to be painted "in that style."'"" In theresulting portrait (Fig. 10), Vig6e Le Brun did not debase her successfulhistory painting by simply replicating it with the princess in the guise of asibyl; instead, she intelligently transformed its salient features to create astriking image of an educated contemporary.'* Princess Dolgoroukaya ispositioned before a tome, rather than holding a scroll, and sitscontemplatively in a neoclassical interior, as opposed to a cave. The postureand costume echo the Sibyl a_.s_ does the curled score of Nicolas Dalayrac'sNina, ou ta fotte par amour,t6 which dangles from the table in a cleveradaptation of the sibyl's scroll. Also noteworthy is the sitte/s large book,which bears the title of Barth6lemy's Le Voyage du jeune Anacfiarsis, thepopular narrative about ancient Greek life that inspired Vig6e Le Brun'searlier "souper grec." Princess Dolgoroukaya seems to ponder what she hasjust read about the ancient Hellenic society, the culture of the Cumaean

s See Vig6e Le Brun, esp. 400, 439, 448, 470, 495, 543,622, U\753. This is also noted bySherifr, 1996,239.

100 When recounting the Duc de Beni's request to buy the Sibyt in 1819, Vigde Le Brun writesthat "this painting was perhaps the one among my works that I valued the most" ("ce tableau f0tpeutdte celui de mes ouvrages auquel je tenais le plu{). See Mg6e Le Brun, 753.

r0r f n Jenkins and Sloan, 271.The sale was held in March 1801.

102 Vigee Le Brun, 448, 470,495, 753; Sheritr, 1996, 239; Baillio, 2005, 232.

103 Vigee Le Brun, 543: "... comme elle avait vu ma Sibytte, dont etle 6tait enthousiasmie, elleddsira que je fisse son portrait dans ce genre."

1e Sherifr, 1996, 321 n. 15.

tot The four items in the Portrait of Pincess Dotgoroukaya are identffied in Baillio, 1 982, 1 18-1 19.

140 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

sibyl, whose depiction by Vig6e Le Brun in turn led to the imaginativeportrait of the Russian princess.

At the time of its completion in 1792, Vig6e Le Brun's Slby/ was thelatest incarnation of the Cumaean sibyl, one of the most well-known andfrequentlydepicted of these ancient female seers.ls In light of Vig6e LeBrun's unusual attention to pertinent accoutrements, it is tempting tosuggest that she also knew that the Cumaean sibyl was special. The earlyChristian author Lactantius reports that her books were inaccessible and itwas unlawful in Rome for anyone to see the6 except the few men who wereentrusted to care for the Oracula Sibytlinalo7 In thii way, the sibyl's wisdomis comparable to history painting in the Acad6mie, which was also availableonly to initiates. Further, the Cumaean sibyl was the only one of theseprophetesses to have a significant role in both Greek and Litin literature.losShe represents the crossing of cultural boundaries, as does ltaly as thepreserver of Greek classicism, Vig6e Le Brun as an expatriate French artistwho appropriated classical sources in ltaly, and Emma Hamilton as a Britishwoman who modeled for a Greek figure. Finally, the Virgilian notion of animpending Golden Age, literarily transmitted through the Cumaean siby^l'sprophecy, was already linked to the anticipated arrival of an ideal ruler.'"' lfVig6e Le Brun understood this, perhaps her royalist inclinations allowed,implicitly or explicitly, an allusion to the hope for a new, divinely-ordainedking in France. Her later Apotheosis of Maie-Antoinefte (location unknown),completed while Napoleon was emperor, certainly amalgamated socio-political content and religious imagery. According to the artist's memoir, thepainting "showed Marie-Antoinette ascending to heaven; on the left, seatedon two clouds were Louis XVI and two angels, an allusion to the twochildren she had lost."110 Although it is impoisible to know the extent ofVigde Le Brun's intimations for the Siby/, her unmistakably sophisticatedappropriation of Virgil demonstrably resulted in a legitimate and intelligenthistory painting that should be recognized as such.

t* Collins, 317. Gisela Kraut, "V\|eibliche Masken: Zum allegorischen Frauenbild des spAten 18.Jahrhunderts,' in Sklavin oder Bilryerin? Franzbsische Revolution und l{eue Weiblichkeit,ViKoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff, ed., Frankfurt, 1989, 348-352 also suggests that the sibyl motifwas an "ldentiftkationstypuC' for women in eighteenth-century paintings; she tentativelyproposes that such motifs resist the prevalent maternal image.

107 collins, 319.

lot Parke, 71.

t* Collins, 320. The author notes that the concept of a Golden Age "lent itself readily to politicalpropaganda, whether or not the relevant Sibylline sour@s had such a purpose."

t10 Vigee Le Brun, 747 "Marie-Antoinefte y 6tait peinte montant au ciel; A gauche, sur desnuages, on voit Louis W et deux anges, allusion aux deux enfants quII avait perdus."

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl l4l

The particular Virgilian allusions in Vig6e Le Brun's Srby/ appear to beunprecedented. Having seen the classicizing works of her ltalianpredecessors and having experienced "Virgil country," Vig6e Le Brun'shistory subject was infused with references appropriate to the highestcategory of academic painting. Rather than presenting her Sibyl in ageneralized antique manner, Vig6e Le Brun executed a work that utilizedclassical knowledge and an ancient textual source to reveal the artistspower of pictorial invention. By situating her sibylline figure in a suitablesouthern ltalian cave environment and equipping her with a scroll thatcontains a Greek translation of the Cumaean sibyl's prophecy-as recordedin Virgil's fourth Eclogu*Vig6e Le Brun demonstrated her knowledge ofthe subject and, like contemporary history painters, synthesized textual andvisual sources to create a compelling representation. Her attention to thenuances of her sources invested the Srbyl with an erudition not typicallyascribed to women artists in the eighteenth century. In so doing, Vig6e LeBrun elevated an ostensible portrait of Emma Hamilton to the levelof historypainting. This iconographic depth helps to explain why the painting wasdisplayed by the artist's contemporaries and why Vig6e Le Brun so proudlyclaimed it as "ma Sibylle."

Andrew D. Hottle is Associate Professor of Art History at Rowan University in Glassboro, NewJersey. He earned his Ph.D. at Temple University-Tyler School of Art, where he studiedEuropean art of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. His recent researchaddresses the work of women artists, both historical and contemporary. ln addition to articleson Peter Paul Rubens and John Everett Millais (Aurora, Vlll, 2007), he has published essaysabout the work of Maftha Nilsson Edelheit and Shirley Gorelick.

t42 Aurora Vol. XI. 2010

Fig. 1. Elsabeth Vig6e Le Brun,Srbyl c. 1792, Private Collection(Photo: Derek Johns Ltd).

Fig. 2. Elisabeth Vig6e Le Brun, lnnocencr- Taking Refuge in the Arms of Justin, 1779,Anges, Mus€e des Beaux-Arts dAngers (Photo: @ clich6 mus€es d'Angers).

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl

Fig. 3. Louis Lagren€e, Justire and Clemency, 1765, Fontainebleau, ChAteau de Fontaine-bleau (Photo: R6union des Mus6es Nationaux/Art Resource, New York).

Fig. 4. Domenichino (attr.),Cumaean Sibyl, c. 1622, Rome,Musei Gapitolini, PinacotecaCapitolina (Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York).

t43

Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

i '

Fig. 5. Elisabeth Vig6e Le Brun, Sibyl, c.1792, Detail, Private Collec'tion (Photo:Derek Johns Ltd).

Fig. 6. Angelica Kauftnan,Sappho, Inspired bY Love,Writing and Ade b APhwdite, 1775, Sarasota, Be-quest of John Ringling,Gollection of The John andMable Ringling Museum ofArt, (Photo: Sarasota, Johnand Mable Ringling Museumof Att).

Andrew D. Hottle, Elisabeth Vigde Le Brun's Sibyl

Fig. 8. Elisabeth Vigde LeBrun. Portnit of EmmaHamilton as a Bacchante,1790-1792, Port Sunlight,National Museums Liverpool,Lady Lever Art Gallery(Photo: @ National MuseumsLiverpool, Lady Lever ArtGallery).

145

Fig. 7. Joseph Wright ofDerby, A Cavem, Eve-ning, 1774, Northampton,Smith College Museum ofArt (Photo: Northampton,Smith College Museum ofArt).

146 Aurora Vol. XI, 2010

Fig. 9. Tommaso Piroli, after FriedrichRehberg, Drawings faithfully copiedfrom Nature at Naples and withpemission dedicated to the RightHonourable S,r Wliam Hamilton,Naples, 1794, Pl. l, (Photo: Delaware,The Winterthur Library, Printed Bookand Periodical Collection).

Fig. 10, Elisabeth Vig6e Le Brun, Poftraitof Pincess Ekateina Dolgotoukaya, 1797,Private Collection; reproduced in NikolaiMikhailovich, Russkr'e porftety XVIII i nXveko% Moscow, 1905-1909 (Photo: @ TheNew York Public Library, Slavic and BalticDivision).