| The following three portraits of women—Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s from 1803, Ivan Kramskoi’s from 1883, and Leonardo da Vinci’s from 1489–1491—are all of unidentified women. But rather than causing viewers to lose interest, the sitters’ anonymity amplifies the paintings’ enigmatic and mysterious appeal. Much scholarly ink has been spilt speculating about their identities. In the absence of certainty, the women become Rorschach tests, tabula rasas, or personifications of the eras when they were painted.
Vigée Le Brun
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) was best known within the Kingdom of France’s Ancien Régime as the beloved portrait painter of Marie Antoinette. A prolific and highly successful artist, Vigée Le Brun benefited from the patronage of European aristocrats, writers, and actors, creating 660 portraits and 200 landscapes throughout her career.
“Portrait of a Woman,” painted in 1803, is a product of Vigée Le Brun’s time exiled in England. A young woman rests against a stone parapet at sunset, gazing wistfully into the distance. She wears Grecian-inspired ochre drapery over a gauzy crêpe blouse, her sleeves cinched with a gold ring…
Ivan Kramskoi
Ivan Kramskoi (1837–1887) was a Russian oil painter and art critic who was born into a poor family of the petite bourgeoisie. He studied at the prestigious St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, which promoted the neoclassical painting style.
By 1883, the year he painted “Portrait of an Unknown Woman,” Kramskoi was at the height of his career. When first exhibited, the painting created quite the sensation, leading to lots of speculation about the sitter’s identity, particularly her vocation…
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