The Head of a Maenad - Portrait of Pelagia Franciszkowa Sapieżyna née Potocka.

This 1794 portrait of Pelagia Sapiężyna as a Maenad demonstrates Vigée Le Brun’s taste for mythological portraiture, depicting her aristocratic sitters in the guise of classical figures. During her exile in Vienna and across Eastern Europe, Vigée Le Brun painted the Polish and Russian nobility who formed a cosmopolitan emigrant society. Vigée Le Brun was the most technically accomplished and socially successful woman painter of the eighteenth century, achieving membership of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1783 and a clientele that extended from the French royal family to the courts of Russia, Austria, and Italy during her decade of exile following the Revolution. Her portrait manner combined the neoclassical formal values of her training with a quality of feminine intimacy and emotional warmth that made her portraits of women and children especially celebrated. Her ability to make her sitters appear simultaneously dignified and approachable was the technical foundation of her social success.

The Maenad guise allows Vigée Le Brun to paint flowing drapery and loosened hair with her characteristic sensuality. The theatrical pose and classical costume elevate the portrait from mere likeness to artistic performance.