On display at Versailles is a valuable Polonicum: a portrait of King Stanisław II August, the last King of Poland, painted by the eminent French artist Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun.

Portrait of King Stanisław II August in an Ermine Coat
A portrait in the French collections depicts King Stanisław II August (1732–1798), of the Ciołek coat of arms. The king’s bust is shown in slight profile to the left, with his head turned to the right, gazing outward. He is dressed in a royal red coat lined with ermine, a navy-blue tailcoat and waistcoat, beneath which a halter (a white neckcloth) is visible. The blue ribbon of the Order of the White Eagle is draped across his chest, while the star of the Order is pinned to his coat. The king appears to be about sixty-five years old, a point the portraitist conveyed through his grey hair pinned back, the rounded oval of his face and a few wrinkles. The artist employed an unusual device: she set the bust within a painted oval on a rectangular canvas. According to scholars, this lent the image a more intimate character. The king is depicted with serenity and dignity. It should be remembered that Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun (1755–1842) painted this portrait under tragic circumstances for the king. After the Third Partition of Poland, Stanisław II August was forced to abdicate in 1795 and went into exile. In March 1797, he arrived in St Petersburg, where he settled in the Marble Palace.

Stanisław August and Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun
At the same time, Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun, the prominent French painter, celebrated as the portraitist of Queen Marie Antoinette as well as many European and Polish sitters, was also in Russia. She had fled France after the outbreak of the French Revolution. The king and Vigée-Le Brun met soon after Poniatowski’s arrival in St Petersburg, and the portrait in question was most likely painted between late March and July 1797.

The king and the painter were bound by their shared fate as exiles, their mutual affection and the king’s admiration of her talent. In turn, Vigée-Le Brun wrote in her memoirs of their friendship: “he called me his friend” [Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, “Souvenirs 1775–1842”, Paris 2015, p. 584, Italian translation]. In chapter XXII of her “Souvenirs”, she described the king’s visits to her studio and his appearance: “Stanisław Poniatowski was tall. His handsome face expressed gentleness and kindness. His voice had a penetrating quality and his gait was infinitely dignified yet free of pretension. He spoke with particular charm, possessing both a deep love of and considerable knowledge of literature. His passion for art was such that, during his reign in Warsaw, he frequently visited the leading artists of the time” [Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, “Souvenirs 1775–1842”, Paris 2015, pp. 584–85, Italian translation].

This attitude of solemnity and respect for the king seems to have been conveyed in the portrait. It is likely that Vigée-Le Brun chose to paint it on her own initiative, perhaps precisely out of the affection and esteem she expressed for the exiled monarch. Equally noteworthy is that, at the same time and under the same circumstances, she produced another portrait of Stanisław II August, this time depicting him in the attire of Henry IV of Bourbon. This work, commissioned by the king’s niece, Urszula Mniszech, née Zamoyska, is today in the collection of the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Art, Kyiv.

Immediately after the king’s death in 1798, the German engraver Ignaz Sebastian Klauber (1753–1817) produced a copperplate engraving of Stanisław August, based on Vigée-Le Brun’s portrait of him in an ermine coat.

The History of the Painting
After completing the “Portrait of Stanisław August in an Ermine Coat”, Vigée-Le Brun retained it in her collection. After her return to France from many years of exile, she exhibited the painting at the Salon of 1802. Until her death in 1842, the work remained in her possession and hung in her residence near Paris. In 1881, her husband bequeathed it to the Louvre. Since 1921, the portrait has been on long-term deposit at the Palace of Versailles.

It is worth noting that the “Portrait of Stanisław August in an Ermine Coat” by Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun was first shown in Poland in 2011 at the exhibition “Stanisław August, the Last King of Poland: Politician, Patron, Reformer, 1764–1795”, held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.