She was born in Paris, April 16th, 1755. Her father was a skillful portrait-painter, and, amid the sports of childhood in her home, she became acquainted with the principles that form the ground-work of this art. She showed very early both disposition and talents for painting. When only seven or eight years of age she drew a sketch of a bearded man, which when her father saw, recognizing it as a token of the presence of genius, he exclaimed, rapturously, “You shall be a painter, my daughter, or there never was one!” Elizabeth long remembered this occurrence, and, in her memoir of herself, speaks of the deep impression made upon her childish feelings by the praises her father lavished on this early production. The lessons she received at home were soon found insufficient for her rapidly-developing talent. She was introduced, as a pupil in drawing, to Briard, a painter of considerable merit, who excelled in outline and sketching. Her teacher in coloring was Davesne, after whom a picture of Marie Antoinette as Dauphine of France was engraved. The celebrated Joseph Vernet, then in the midst of his brilliant career, gave her valuable advice, and always took a fatherly interest in the gifted child. Her own father died when she was only thirteen years old, but her mother permitted her to continue her studies of the great masters in the public galleries. Here the maiden copied from the mighty works of Rubens, from the portraits of Rembrandt and Vandyck, and from the delicate and charming female heads of Greuze. Thus the ground-work was laid of her future eminence as a colorist, and it was not long ere she was sufficiently advanced to make considerable profit out of her labors. Her father had left no property at his death, and her mother had been too long accustomed to a brilliant and luxurious Parisian life not to feel privations sorely. She sought the means of indulgence in her accustomed pleasures by availing herself of the talents of her daughter, who now found herself obliged to support the family with her earnings. Even when the mother entered into a second marriage, some years later, the condition of things was not improved. Madame Vigée, wedded to a rich jeweler, found herself disappointed in the expectation of increased means to minister to her vanity and extravagance. From the day of the bridal the husband showed himself so avaricious and penurious, that he refused to furnish his wife and step-daughter even the necessaries of life. The labors of our poor little Elizabeth were again in requisition; and though her old friend Vernet advised her to give her parents only an allowance from her earnings, and reserve the remainder for her own use, all she could procure was taken from her and spent, either in the purchase of articles for the family, or for the gratification of her mother’s unbounded fondness for dress, promenades, and public amusements.