Francesca Whitlum-Cooper
speaker
176 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 23 Jul
Francesca Whitlum-Cooper’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
There's this really beautiful, complex light effect.
And having seen that in Brussels at this very, very famous sale, it was a very well-known painting.
She knew about it even before she'd gone and seen it in person.
Vigée Le Brun paints a self-portrait in which she places herself in a straw hat.
And for me, I think there's several things that make this a really extraordinary thing to do.
First is that she shows herself not only in the beautiful straw hat with an ostrich feather and wildflowers and a very beautiful silk dress...
but also crucially holding her palette.
So it is a self-portrait of her as a painter, very, very much advertising her profession.
The second is that she's situating herself in a kind of old master context here.
She's very explicitly quoting Rubens.
Anyone looking at the portrait in that time that Rubens was so famous, they would have known that's what she's referring to.
But she's not only quoting Rubens, actually, I think she's correcting the mistake because hers is a very beautiful straw hat.
It's the sort of centre of the picture.
You can't possibly avoid it.
And she too, you know, absolutely nails these incredible light effects over the face.
You've got her beautiful décolletage, again, this palette.
So the whole thing, I think, is this very complex manifestation, if you will, of her identity, not only as an artist, not only as a woman, but also as someone who can equal and indeed maybe outdo the old masters.
You can.
You can compare and contrast and see which you prefer.
That's not the year to return.
Showing 61–80 of 176 · page 4 of 9
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