Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was a French artist and a court painter for three Russian emperors. She was a member of all European academies. In 1828, she became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg. She was born in Paris and studied under the guidance of her father, the portraitist Louis Vigée. She also took lessons from Gabriel Briard, a landscape and portrait painter who had a studio at the Louvre. Thanks to that, Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun became acquainted with the work and techniques of various artists. After the French Revolution, she was forced to leave France. In the 1790s, she started working in the Russian Empire.

Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun spent six years in Saint Petersburg and painted 47 portraits. Later, she published a book titled “Memoirs of Madame Vigée-Lebrun About Her Stay in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, 1795–1801”. In total, she painted 662 portraits.

In this portrait, the artist depicted Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alexeievna, born Princess Luise Marie Auguste von Baden. In 1793, she married Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich. In 1801, he became Emperor Alexander I of Russia.

The artist’s recollections about the story behind this portrait were published in the “Old Years” issue for July–September 1911. She wrote,

The portrait from the collection of the Pskov Museum was designed as a gift. It was intended for the Grand Duchess’s mother, Princess Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt who became a Princess of Baden by marriage.

This is a full-face portrait of Elizabeth Alexeievna. The duchess is dressed in a formal gown, with a blue moire ribbon draped over her shoulder and the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle the First-Called. Her put-up hairstyle is topped with a small imperial crown. Around her neck, she wears a pearl necklace with a portrait medallion of Alexander I.