Portrait of Joseph Hyacinthe François-de-Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil

The artist of this painting, Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, was one of the most important European portraitists of the eighteenth century, and one of only four women to be admitted to the French Academy of Fine Arts. She painted members of the royal court and Parisian high society, including her close friend, the Comte de Vaudreuil, whose lofty social status is on full display here. Seated in a carved and gilded chair, he wears a lavishly embellished jacket and waistcoat with delicate lace at his collar and cuffs. A bright blue silk sash and silver badge indicate that he has just received a knighthood from King Louis XVI.

Though among the most prominent members of the French court, de Vaudreuil had strong ties to the Americas. He was born on his family’s sugar plantation in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), the son of the island’s military governor; his grandfather had been governor of New France, which encompassed territory from Canada to Louisiana. However, his engaging personality (fully evident in this portrait), family connections, and great wealth, much of it based in the colonial economy of enslaved labor, were not enough to protect de Vaudreuil’s position during the French Revolution. He fled France in July of 1789, not returning until the monarchy had been restored some twenty-five years later (2022).