I tore through this book in less than an hour! I am a French Revolution era nerd and was a high school art nerd, so this was the intersection of passions of mine. Stylistically, I loved the look and feel of the book. The use of modern colors and page layouts with the art. There are so many paintings in this book that show the time and the "characters" in Elizabeth's story. The writing is engaging and does not feel like a dry history book. I think people who don't enjoy non-fiction could enjoy this one.

ARC from NetGalley.

I had seen her paintings but before reading this book I knew nothing of the artist. I was delighted to learn about her colorful life and groundbreaking art.

Elisabeth Vigee LeBrun wrote a memoir filled with the famous people she met as a portraitist, including Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great.

Her story as an artist began as a child instructed by her father, who died when she was twelve. One of her father’s friends encouraged her to continue lessons and by her late teens, art had become the focus of her life. She married an artist and art collector under pressure from her mother, and to escape her stepfather.

Elisabeth painted over thirty portraits of Marie Antoinette and her family. One infamous painting showed Marie in her comfortable white chemise, which scandalized society. She had to paint another, with Marie is more traditional court dress.

Elisabeth was so busy by day painting, and socializing at night, that it impacted her health.

With the French Revolution, Elisabeth fled her homeland with her daughter, and was welcomed into society across Europe, painting portraits to earn her keep. She was an intrepid sightseer, hiking up Mt. Vesuvius to peer into the magma. Her husband, now her ex, finally arranged for her to safely return to France.

Elisabeth was eight-six when she passed, having painted 800 canvases.

Elisabeth’s paintings fill the book. She was masterful at details of costume, often portraying her subjects in the character of a mythological person. There is a freshness and idealism to her faces, the lips often parted as if beginning to smile, the eyes large and expressive.

Elisabeth captured the images of women who shaped politics and culture. I was delighted to learn her story.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley

Arc received through NetGalley.

The only complaint I have about this book is it's length, I wanted it to go on for way longer than it did.

The lay-out looks great to me and the writing reads easily.

I was thrilled to read more about artist Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun. I have seen her self-portrait in person and was fascinated to learn more about her life and see more of her beautiful paintings. This book hits all the highlights – court painter to Marie Antoinette, fleeing for life, travelling Europe and painting Catherine the Great. It also touchingly explores her relationship with her only daughter, who travelled with her for many years. A great book for art lovers or historians and everyone else, too.


Thank you to NetGalley and Getty Publications for this DRC.
#Daring #NetGalley

A beautiful and well written YA/teen biography of the French artist Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun. I am someone who plans trips to visit art and great museums. I have seen Le Brun’s works in multiple museums and countries, but really knew nothing of her life. I am fascinated by women artists who have talents that cannot be denied in their own lifetime. Le Brun was the daughter of an artist who encouraged her work. She was the first of only 15 women ever allowed into French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. She found a successful career before the French Revolution and painted multiple commissions of Marie Antoinette. She fled France and found work around Europe before finally returning to her country. I love that she lived a long 86 years and was a prolific artist. She even wrote her own memoir.

This book is wonderfully laid out. It follows her life and includes many of her paintings in color. It also includes side notes about the history of the time that impacts her life. I thought it was fascinating that she was sent to live with a wet nurse in the countryside rather than staying with her parents as a child in Paris. And what a common thing that was at the time. There are descriptions of each art work. I love that in the back of the book are photo credits so you know which museums have those works now. I have added smaller museums in the USA to my list of art places to visit.

A school teacher friend of mine told me that YA biographies are a great way to learn about people. This is a perfect example of giving a lot of good information, in only 112 pages. I was in France last October and realized I have photos of some of her paintings from my visits to the Louvre and Versailles. This was a treat for me to read and easy to recommend to teens and adult readers alike.

Fascinating look at the portrait painter Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun she is considered to be one of the best portrait painters in history.This was a beautiful book to read & to look out.Beautiful paintings gorgeous layout a gem of a book.#NetGalley #getty

I don’t usually read biographies because they tend to be very dense and hyper focused. But this book was very accessible-and not just for teens! Anyone who wants to learn more about the lives of women artists, the French Revolution, or the history of portraiture art will find themselves learning so much more. And it left me wanting more! There’s a little hint here and there about intriguing historical details like racial politics during the Revolution or the history of muslin fabric that left me excited to learn more.

Despite its lack of depth, the book is written in such a way that it leaves you feeling like you just watched these events happen before your eyes. There is no dialogue, but I felt I could hear Marie Antoinette and Elisabeth discussing which dress would be just right for the queen’s portrait. I’ve found this only happens in books that are written with passion and care, and I’m delighted this is one.

My one criticism, though, is that there is no criticism in the book. This especially struck me when the author was explaining that despite their intimate proximity throughout their travels, Elisabeth never mentioned her daughter’s governess in her memoirs. The author suggests that this is because their conversations were “boring….” never mind the fact they were traveling because Elisabeth, with her wealth and royal connections, was fleeing the guillotine. She lived in a class structure so elitist that it caused a violent revolution….maybe that’s a clue as to why she never gave the governess she employed the time of day.

I also found it funny when the author says Elisabeth wrote her memoirs because she wanted to leave “no part of her life up to interpretation.” Yet here we are, hundreds of years later, speculating about how she treated her servants. That’s not a criticism, just a funny irony.

What a delightful little book. I completed my MA in Art History focused on the self-portraiture of the artist so I am all for the exposure in popular nonfiction! I found the book to be well researched and thought out.

Design-wise, however, I really disliked the white pages with splotches of bright neon yellow. When you are dealing with such detailed artwork it just distracts from the work. It makes some sense for a popular audience but I would have been annoyed by it in any other art history book on the shelf so it is not singular to the topic.

This is a visually beautiful book that talks about the life of Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, one of the most famous and well-known female artists of her time. I enjoyed getting to know Elisabeth better through the glimpses into her life; despite being an informational text, this book read easily and felt like more of a story than a historical account of her life and art. I loved that there was a nice balance of text and artwork on each page, which seems attainable to readers. This book is definitely one that I will be purchasing for my classroom and incorporating within my creative writing curriculum--this is young adult nonfiction done well!

Thank you to NetGalley and Getty Publications for the early advanced digital copy of this book, and the chance to read and review it! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A really surprising short book.
This biography of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun was entertaining and more interesting than I expected in depicting the life and deeds of this prolific painter who really made a place for herself among European nobilities and royal families despite the limited place that women, and women painters above all, where given in her times.
The writing style is really compelling and fluid, and I really appreciated the author’s ability to combine the description of the many incredible events of Elisabeth’s life side by side with the her (but not only) paintings descriptions and some insights on important figures and events of her time.
I was also really pleased with the layout of the book itself, although I would have appreciated precise information on where her paintings are exhibited nowadays.
Definitely a good choice to spend some hour and be inspired.

A good, albeit short, introduction to Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, the woman behind some of the most popular paintings of Marie Antoinette. This delves more into her life after she fled the French Revolution, which is rare and much appreciated by this reader. I would have loved for a longer, more in depth biography from this author. The reproductions of the paintings in the book were lovely, even on a computer screen. Definitely would recommend to those who are curious about the artist and have little to no information about her prior to this book.

Women's stories matter — no matter how small or big their contribution to society is. Pomeroy's well-executed biography on Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun is an example of how women's achievements in the past were either buried or credited to their male relatives. In Daring, Pomeroy's talks about Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun with love and admiration.
An ingenue who took Paris by storm with her artistic talents and beauty, VIgee Le Brun story widely remains unknown to those outside of the art world. Discovered as a young talent, nourished by her great painters of her time and of her admission at the Royal Academy of Paint and Sculpture in Paris, Vigee Le Brun rich paintings survived even the French Revolution. Enjoying the patronage of the many royals across France, Italy, and Austria, Vigee Le Brun was one of the few women who enjoyed the freedom of expression and independent and often revolution thinking that might have deterred the lives of her peers.
Carefully crafted and brilliantly executed with reproductions of her paintings accompanied by side notes that provide historical context along with end notes, Pomeroy's narration on Vigee le Brun's extraordinary life, aided by her own published biography, is rich in its essence, providing historical input from a woman's perspective in the art world, a rarity since many women were either muses or subjects and often mute.
I would heartily recommend this book

Very infomative and interesting biography that I think would be perfect for school libraries. Would highly recommend.

Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun by Jordana Pomeroy is everything you would want in a biographical work on an important painter. Plenty of images, her life story, and information to contextualize her life for the current reader.

As Pomeroy mentions at the beginning, Vigée Le Brun's memoir, like most memoirs, leave things out or gloss over events. So this work utilizes much of what is in the multi-volume memoir but supplements it with greater detail as well as insets explaining both people and society of the time. This truly brings Vigée Le Brun's amazing life and work into greater focus.

There are a lot of pictures of both her work and that of other artists, those who influenced her as well as those that represent the current trends of the day. Now that we have the internet, the ability to find additional pictures as well as details of some of the paintings can make this an even better experience. The book does a great job as is, when coupled with images from the internet readers can really immerse themselves in the works and the times.

As informative as this is, it is also a beautiful book and makes a great coffee table book. Whether simply for looks, to spark conversation when friends are over, or to pique a young person's interest in art, displaying this volume will meet your needs.

Recommended for those who enjoy biographies in general as well as those who like to read about art history, and history in general. The people she painted reads like the index of a history book of the period.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

This is a quick survey course of Le Brun's life, taken from her memoir. At its heart, it is a personal story of mother and daughter as they fled the French Revolution and travelled Europe. She met/painted some of the most famous/infamous leaders of the era: from Marie Antoinette to Catherine the Great, George IV to the sister of Napoleon. Along the way she worked with some of the great artists and literati of the time.

The biography is presented chronologically with copious amounts of quotes directly from Le Brun herself. She was a very interesting person who lived in a tumultuous time; the story here is fascinating: a story of an unconventional women, a huge talent, and with an incredible life. It is a quick 100 page read with plenty of full color images of the artist's works, spanning an incredible 80+ years.

I greatly enjoyed this survey of her life and work. Many years ago, I came across her painting of Countess Kinsky at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. The tragic story of the Countess and the pathos in which she was painted by LeBrun captured my heart. In reading this biography, there were many such stories since LeBrun specialized in women's portraits.

This is very nicely presented, very graphic, easy to follow, a quick read, and with many full color images that tell the story nicely. Highly recommended. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

I loved Jordana Pomeroy's Daring. Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun is an artist who's work is instantly recognizable and paintings I make sure to see if a museum has one. I loved learning about her life and have added her memoir to my to read list Even though I knew on some level that she was in France at the time of the Revolution, I had never considered that she was one of the people forced to flee France. I found this section and the glimpses offered of Marie Antoinette's personality the most fascinating part of the book. I also enjoyed the yellow cultural context sections as it helped widen out the story. I highly recommend Daring to anyone interested in art history.

A book about my favorite artist! Finally!

Talented, intelligent and resilient. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun has been underappreciated for too long.

I read Madame Le Brun's memoir several years ago and have wanted to learn more about her since. This book is impressively researched and I deeply enjoyed the historical anecdotes, they added important context to many of the excerpts from her memoir.

I love the design of the book as well, the bright yellow gives it a contemporary feel. I can't wait to pick it up when it's published!

Thank you to NetGalley and Getty Publications for the Advanced Reader Copy.

This book is so beautifully designed! I also love learning about women from history who might not be as well-known today, and this one certainly fits the bill. All in all, an interesting story and gorgeous to look at.

Publishing date: 29.07.2025 (DD/MM/YYYY)
Thank you to NetGalley and Getty Publications for the ARC. My opinions are my own.

In this book we explore the life of the artist, her struggles, and her rise to fame (although it looked very different then than it did today).

In my shame I admit I do not remember much from the actual life story for the artist. I was so deep into the paintings themselves to properly pay attention. The way she makes her paintings so radiant, glowing, and ethereal is truly astonishing. I love the way she uses stark contrasts between shadow and light to make her paintings POP.

If you, like me, were drawn to this book for the recognizable style (think Marie Antoinette paintings and you have probably seen her work) and only want to look at the paintings, feel no shame. I would still recommend you take a peek and dive deep into this wonderful woman's work.

Giving this 3 stars, although I remember no story, I did love the way every painting was presented. Recommending this to art enthusiasts, both for the art and the artist.

If you've seen portraits of Marie Antoinette, most likely you've seen the beautiful artwork of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. This lovely biography introduces the reader to the life and times of the artist. It's full of interesting and engaging history and works of art.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ecopy of the book for me to review.

Filled with pictures of the stunning paintings of this remarkable artist, this book tells her fascinating, adventurous and tragic life. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s talent was recognized very early and she was patronised by Queen Marie Antoinette when she was only 23, part of an admiring circle of French aristocrats. This changed when the violence of the French Revolution began, so cleverly recognising the danger that she was in, Elizabeth made a daring escape with her beloved daughter and her daughter’s governess, beginning a nomadic life. Her husband helped them escape but stayed behind.
She travelled to Italy, Austria, Switzerland and England, feted by royalty and aristocracy, and given membership of prestigious academies. Catherine the Great asked to meet her very soon after she travelled to Russia, where she was the first women elected to join the prestigious Imperial Academy. Always in search of adventure and danger, she went to Mt Vesuvius shortly after it erupted, where lumps of black lava still lay and she could still see smoke! Her travels must have been exceedingly difficult in those days in bumpy, uncomfortable carriages on rough roads.

Her life was beset by tragedy with the early deaths of her father, daughter and brother. She obviously had a very sunny disposition, though, and probably her Catholicism helped her as well. She seems to have been very stoic and enduring.

This was a fascinating and enjoyable book about the great artist. I also liked the side-boxes about the people that she painted and other informative topics about the era. I will definitely buy it if I can find the room!

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I enjoyed this a lot! Informative pop art history that expertly rides the line between well researched and easily read by the general public. The design of the book, with the side stories + paintings adding colour to the main biography, is very engaging and made it hard for me to put down at times.

Would recommend to anyone who likes art history, the 18th century, interesting women, etc etc

"Daring - The Life and Art of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun" by Jordana Pomeroy is a delightful journey through the life and works of one of the most famous and influential woman artists in history.

The book does not just draw information from Elisabeths memoirs, it provides the reader with additional informations, which vary from the political situation and climate at that particular time in her life, to further information about notable figures, that aren’t only important in historical contexts, but were also present in her life as well.
The text is written in an easily understandable way, which is great for people that don't necessarily know much about art and art history and are looking for something to get started on the topic of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. In addition to that, the book also includes a vast number of pictures of Elisabeth's works and works by other artists and depictions of people that are being mentioned in the text.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book and it is a great and comprehensive introduction to Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun's life and works.

Thank you to NetGalley and Getty Publications for giving me access to this ARC! :)

This book is going to look fantastic when it is in print! It has a perfect balance of text and visuals, and the biography of Vigee-Lebrun is informative and well-paced. Enough historical context surrounding the time period is given so that the reader gets a solid idea of the society in which Vigee-Lebrun lived. The book is light on formal visual analysis of the works, but given that this is listed under ‘Teens and YA’ that is not a big detractor. The little asides/’fun facts’ that accompany some of the paintings are interesting, too. I particularly enjoyed the tidbit about how a certain type of muslin that Marie Antoinette favored is no longer in production nowadays because of a dearth of the species of cotton that was used.

Thanks to my mother I always loved the artist Elisabeth Vigee le Brun. The painting that graces the cover of Daring is one that she took me to see in a museum when I was young, and just developing a taste for art museums. I always loved portraits, which provide such a window to the past. What I didn't realize is what an amazing woman Vigee le Brun was for her time! Or for any time.

The book is a quick read. There is enough information to give an interested party like me a good overview of the artist's life, but not bog you down with more minutia than you can absorb. I loved how paintings were featured all throughout the book, along with an explanation of why they were painted or what aspects made the painting special. It was so interesting to read about her escape from Paris at a time when aristocrats were being jailed and executed. As a painter of aristocrats, Vigee le Brun was definitely one of those who could have been killed had they caught her. Because of the upheaval in French politics, she would roam Europe for a couple of decades before being able to return to a very different France.

I loved this book and think anyone with an appreciation for art, but especially anyone who wants to see what this very accomplished female artist was able to accomplish at a time when women were expected to be nothing but wives and mothers.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jordana Pomeroy and Getty Publications for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this up not knowing much about Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun beyond having seen a few of her paintings in museums, and I was really glad I did. The book is short and super readable, a biography that doesn’t feel overly simplified, perfect if you want a quick but rich introduction to an artist’s life. I loved learning how she started painting as a child, encouraged by her father before his early death, and how she eventually became one of only 15 women admitted to the French Royal Academy. Her career was remarkable: she created more than thirty portraits of Marie Antoinette, received commissions across Europe, and even hiked up Mt. Vesuvius for fun. She lived to 86 and produced around 800 works.

The book is beautifully put together, with lots of colour images, context notes about the Revolution, and even details about where her paintings are now. As someone who travels to see art, I appreciated that. It made me want to revisit the Louvre and Versailles with fresh eyes.
My only complaint is that the book paints her life in a very flattering light. Given the Revolution, class tensions, and her treatment of staff, I felt like there was more complexity that got glossed over.
Still, it’s engaging, informative, and left me curious to learn more. I’d recommend it to teens and adults alike who enjoy art, history, or strong women’s stories.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This was marvelous! I leapt at it on sight as Vigée Le Brun is one of my favorite artists, and this is the book she deserves as a well-researched biography with plenty of interesting sidebars placing the events of her life in their wider context. It was such a treat seeing so many of her paintings laid out alongside the stories of what led her to meeting the people who sat for her, with some of the deeper cuts I hadn't come across before just cementing her spot in my top five faves. Wonderful artist, wonderful book. I recommend this for anyone familiar with her work, or unfamiliar! Look her up, she rules.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Getty Publications for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really modern looking and sounding book on history. I loved that there was background info on bigger picture things like empire.

Daring is the story of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, most famously known for her portraits of the infamous Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. It details her birth, upbringing, marriage, marital struggles and her influences in art. It tells of her first teachers, of her contemporaries and of how culture and her environment shaped her art. Accompanied by images of her work, relevant illustrations and pieces from other contemporaries, it covers a number of topics relevant to her life and legacy.

This was a pleasure to read, and I loved learning about such a wonderful artist. Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun is indeed a gifted portrait painter and being a female artist in 1700/1800’s who was widely recognized is truly amazing.

This biography is the perfect length and doesn’t go overtly into detail. The artistic works featured are stunning and accompanying tidbits are interesting.

Excellent! This is my fifth book I've read about Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun, and I always learn something new. What I loved in this book in how the author told Le Brun's life and talked about the art she was creating at each stage. Including images of said art and expounding on them is what makes this more than a simple biography. It's also French art history of the 18th century, during critical times in France's political life. I don't think I'll ever tire of reading about this artist. She's just too fascinating to me.

Thanks to NetGalley for access to this arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A thoroughly entertaining look at the life and work of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun who was a court painter for Marie Antoinette and overcame a lot to find renown as an artist in her time. I had never heard of her before this book, and honestly wasn't sure how engaging I would find something like this, but the cover seemed fun and eye-catching, so I gave it a go, and I'm glad I did! Super accessible, well-organized, and interesting. A quicker read than it looks like, easily digestible. I enjoyed it!