reign of Emperor Napoleon I.<\/a> In demand by Europe’s elite, she traveled to England in the early 19th century and painted portraits of several British notables including Lord Byron. In 1807 she traveled to Switzerland and was made an honorary member of the Societ\u00e9 pour l’Avancement des Beaux-Arts of Geneva.<\/span><\/p>\nAt the urging of a friend of hers, Countess Dolgoruki, Vig\u00e9e Lebrun published her memoirs in 1835 and 1837, in which she shows an interesting perspective on the training of artists at the end of the era dominated by the royal academies.<\/span><\/p>\nStill very active in her 50s, she bought a house in Louveciennes, \u00cele-de-France. She lived in it until the Prussian army took it during the war of 1814. She lived in Paris until her death on March 30, 1842. She never remarried. Her body was taken back to Louveciennes where she was buried in a cemetery near her former home.<\/span><\/p>\nOn her tombstone the epitaph reads “Ici, enfin, je repose…” (“Here, at last, I rest…”).<\/span><\/p>\nVig\u00e9e Lebrun is considered the most important female artist of the 18th century. She left behind 660 portraits and 200 landscapes.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n