Two portraits of Marie Antoinette, painted by Madame Vigée-Lebrun in 1778, both of which were destined to be sent to Vienna as gifts for her mother and brother, the Empress Maria Teresa and Joseph II.
Marie Theresa asked the Count Mercy to approach Marie Antoinette to request the two portraits for a room filled with family portraits.
Forgoing the usual court painters, Marie Antoinette chose someone new for this important commission: a rising star in art, the Parisian portraitist Madame Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who had already painted Marie Antoinette’s brother in law, the Comte de Provence. It was to be the first painting in a series that was to immortalise both sitter and artist in the eyes of posterity: when one thinks of Marie Antoinette, it is the vision of her as painted by Madame Vigée-Lebrun that one usually sees, either dressed in shimmering white silk as here, radiant in blue silk and holding a rose in the gardens of the Petit Trianon, shyly smiling in soft white muslin or holding her precious children close while surrounded by the splendours of Versailles.
The first of the paintings, the one above, was sent in January 1779 and the Empress immediately fired off a letter saying how delighted she was with it and Marie Antoinette liked it so much that she ordered another copy to be hung in her rooms at Versailles.
I find it interesting that the arms and skirt are almost identical in both paintings. One wonders if she had started both at the same time and only finished the second after it was requested.
I think that that is totally possible or that she worked from the same preparatory sketches. :)