Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842)

This lively portrait by Marie-Antoinette's (future) favorite painter was set off by a gleaming, highly original Japanese-style silver tea service.

All of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun's budding talent shows through in this 1774 portrait of the Lord of La Grange-aux-Bois.

Time and patience were the key factors in the auction house's ability to assemble a coherent, high-quality ensemble of works of art, furniture and carpets from a wide variety of provenances. It took three years, but the gamble paid off.

The California institution announced the acquisition of the Portrait of Joseph Hyacinthe François-de-Paule de Rigaud, Count of Vaudreuil, painted around 1784 by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. A gift from the Ahmanson Foundation, the work is the first French portrait of its kind to join the eminent collection.

Have you seen the original, housed in the Château of Versailles? This portrait of Marie-Antoinette and her children is a precise replica of the original by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842).

Under the supervision of Grégoire Lacroix, the newly appointed head of the Old Master Painting and Drawing department at Aguttes, this sale on the fringe of the Salon du Dessin (see page 84) will unveil many top-quality drawings among its 150 lots. One...

The museum purchased Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell (1791) by the French Old Master. This work was one of the first history paintings by a woman shown at the Paris Salon. Having studied with Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun and David, Benoist was one of the rare women accepted into the Royal Academy with full membership.

Throughout her rich and tumultuous life, Margaret Louise Brozek acquired works of exceptional quality from limited series by Giacometti, Pompon and Hiquily.

While the fair is in full swing, one of the French artist's (who died in 2010) giant spiders has been sold for $40M by Hauser & Wirth - the auction record for a Spider being set at $28M. The 1996 steel structure came from the collection of Ursula Hauser, mother of the gallery's co-founder 

In Biarritz, a well-stocked selection of pictures ranged from Louis XIV splendor and the delicate work of late 18th-century star portraitist Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun to contemporary lyricism.