In her memories Vigée Le Brun stated that the painter Claude Joseph Vernet advised her to study the Flemish masters.

Partly because her eyes fall into the shadow of the hat, the viewer's gaze is immediately drawn to the neck lit from below, which widens into her central décolleté.

In the other parts of the work she manages to reintroduce the brilliant shine of directly reflected natural light into the spirit of her great example.

She shows herself in the open air against a cloud-moving, but calm sky, which contrasts particularly in the colour composition with the multi-coloured depiction of herself as a painter.

She wears earrings with a flamboyant straw hat decorated with flowers and ostrich feathers on her head, which was considered artistic at the time.

Vigée Le Brun, who found her most important patrons among the French aristocracy and in particular also worked for Marie Antoinette, herself fled to Florence, Rome, Vienna and Saint Petersburg after the revolution.