by Redazione 02/11/2026
Categories: Modern Art / Disclaimer
One of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s masterpieces, the portrait of her daughter Julie as a bather, will be the highlight of Christie’s Old Masters auction on February 3. The estimate for this work is $1.8–2.2 million.
A portrait of the daughter of Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun ( Paris, 1755–1842), painted during her years of exile in Italy, which has remained in a private collection for over two centuries and is now set to be auctioned for the first time. *Julie Le Brun as a Bather*, a work created in 1792 by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, will be the centerpiece of a selection of antique paintings from a prestigious private collection, to be offered by Christie’s in both London and New York. The painting will be offered at the Old Masters evening sale in New York on February 3, 2027, with an estimate of $1.8–2.2 million (€1.6–1.95 million).
The subject is Jeanne-Julie-Louise Le Brun (1780–1819), known as Julie, the only daughter of the painter and Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, a merchant, auctioneer, and one of the most prominent art experts in Paris during the final decades of the Ancien Régime. The work was created while mother and daughter were living in Italy, after fleeing France following the outbreak of the Revolution. The girl was twelve years old at the time. The painting was purchased, through the mediation of the painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze, by the Russian prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, a collector and member of the imperial aristocracy. It remained in his family until the 20th century. According to Christie’s, the canvas has not been lined and is in exceptional condition.
Vigée Le Brun was one of the most celebrated European portrait painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1783, she was among the few women admitted to the Académie Royale in Paris and worked as the official portrait painter to Queen Marie Antoinette. The Revolution forced her to leave France, but her career continued in various European cities, where she achieved international fame.
The portrait of Julie is part of a series of works the artist dedicated to her daughter during her childhood and adolescence. Among the best known are two double portraits in which mother and daughter are depicted in an affectionate embrace, now housed at the Louvre; for this painting as well, the artist drew upon a long iconographic tradition in composing the young woman’s pose.
This work was last on public view during the major retrospective dedicated to Vigée Le Brun at the Grand Palais in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York between 2015 and 2016, and has not been offered on the market since then: according to the auction house, its last appearance at auction dates back over two hundred years.
The selection from the private collection also includes works by Osias Beert, Jan Massys, Henri-Pierre Danloux, Jan van Huysum, Jan van Os, and Mihály Munkácsy. The paintings will be divided between the London sale on December 8 and the New York auction “Old Master Paintings Part I,” scheduled for February 3, 2027. A selection of works will be on display in Paris through November 4 and subsequently in London from December 4 to 8, prior to the auctions.
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| He painted his 12-year-old daughter as a bather; now the masterpiece is going up for auction: estimated at 1.8 million |
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