Countess Golovina (1766–1821)

Image credit: The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

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Notes

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Countess Golovina sweeps up her shawl and looks at us with startling candour. Vigée-Lebrun met and befriended Varvara Nikolaevna Golovina in Russia in the late 1790s during the artist’s exile from revolutionary France. She described Golovina as a ‘charming woman’ who was a talented musician and artist, and a lover of literature. The spontaneous and informal pose conveys Golovina’s lively intelligence and a sympathetic engagement between the two women. The compact octagonal format and the simplest setting – a diagonal shaft of light – reinforce the portrait’s intimacy.
Title

Countess Golovina (1766–1821)

Date

1797–1800

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 83.5 x W 66.7 cm

Accession number

80.1

Acquisition method

purchased, 1980

Work type

Painting

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The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TS England

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