One of the most famous portrait artists of her time, and the official painter for Marie-Antoinette, is the subject of a big new exhibition at the Grand Palais, the first ever French retrospective of her work.

Here’s all the info.

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was an extraordinary woman who managed to raise a family while also nurturing her career (a very rare event for the time), becoming the most sought-after portrait artist in Europe. Born in Paris in 1755 into a modest family, her mother was a hairdresser and her father a talented portraitist, which goes some way to explaining how Élisabeth chose her career.

As she wasn’t allowed to paint male nudes, she turned her hand to portait painting and the price of her work soon escalated, no doubt aided by her new husband, a very important art dealer.

However, being close to Marie-Antoinette has its disadvantages –  Élisabeth was forced to flee France during the Revolution and start what was to become a 12-year exile across Europe (which reminds me of a certain Juliette Récamier).

An exceptional and determined women, very much like those that inspired Les Dames du Panthéon, Vigée Le Brun is celebrated with 150 works on show, some being displayed for the first time, lent by the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the Louvre, the château de Versailles, the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersbourg, the Met in New York, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and a number of private collections.

To prepare your visit, you can download a leaflet in English here (PDF), and prepare yourself for an ‘olfactory installation’ (spray of perfume) as you enter the exhibition, created by Francis Kurkdjian.

And if you want to learn more after your visit, there are an awful lots of elements at your disposal:

– The official catalogue (432 pages, 380 illustrations, 50€ here at amazon.fr) and three other publications with between 48 and 207 pages

– Five talks

– A cycle of four films

– A family concert on Saturday 7th November at 2.30pm

– A play called La Légèreté française on Thursday 24th September at 6pm, Wednesday 21st October at 6.30pm and Wednesday 6th January at 6.30pm

– An app for iOS and Android, as well as a 40-page e-album (slightly expensive) for iPad (4.99€)

– A 90-minute documentary called Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun – A Touch of Grace being shown on the Arte TV channel on Saturday 3rd October at 8.50p, available to watch on their website Arte+7 for the 7 days following, and then on DVD (in English, 19.90€)

– Madame is even on Facebook!

The exhibition Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun is at Grand Palais (here) from 23rd September 2015 -11th January 2016

Open 10am-8pm (10pm Wednesdays). Closed Tuesday. Closes at 6pm on 24th & 31st December 2015

Admission: 13€ / 9€ / free for the White Night event from 8pm-midnight

Website: here

Facebook: facebook.com/GrandPalais.RMN

Twitter : twitter.com/GrandPalaisRmn

Instagram: instagram.com/grandpalais_rmn/