Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was one of the most successful painters of her time. During her life, from 1755 to 1842, she painted more than 900 works. She loved painting self-portraits, creating nearly 40 over the course of her career, in the style of artists she admired such as Peter Paul Rubens (Montfort). However, the majority of her paintings were beautiful, colorful, idealized likenesses of the aristocrats of her time, the best known of these being the French Queen Marie-Antoinette, whom she painted from 1779 to 1789. Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was not only the Queen's portrait painter for ten years, but she also became her close and personal friend. She only saw the luxurious, carefree, colorful and fabulous lifestyle that the aristocracy lived in, rather than the poverty and suffrage that much of the rest of the country was experiencing. Throughout her life, Elisabeth kept the ideals of the aristocracy that she saw through Marie-Antoinette, painting a picture that she believed to be practically perfect. Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun's relationship with Marie-Antoinette affected her social position, her politics, her painting style, and her career. Before the 20th century, women artists were the minority members of the art world (Montfort). They lacked formal training and therefore were not taken seriously. If they painted, it was generally assumed that they had a parent who was a relatively well-known male painter. Women generally worked with still lifes and miniatures which were at the "bottom" in the genre hierarchy, with biblical scenes, history, and mythological paintings being at the top (Montfort). To be able to paint the most respected genres, one had to have experience in the study of anatomy and in drawing the male nude, two activities considered...... middle of paper ..... .ame Vigée-Lebrun. Trans. Lionel Strachey. Gloucester: Dodo Press, 1903. Print. Gooden, Angelica. The sweetness of life: a biography of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. London: André Deutsch Limited, 1997. Print. Sheriff, Mary. The exceptional woman: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and the cultural politics of art. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. Print. Deborah Solomon. “The Drama of Madame Lebrun.” The new criterion. The New Criterion Mag., June 1989. Web. December 7, 2013. “Élisabeth-Vigée Lebrun”. Encyclopedia Brittanica, np Web. 2013. December 7, 2013. “Art and women FA 2011”. : Women artists: from the Middle Ages to contemporary artists. Rutgers University - Newark, November 27, 201111. Web. December 7, 2013. “Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.” » Rococo in European art of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, nd Web. December 5. 2013.