Portrait of My Sister

Élisabeth Chaplin was a French/Tuscan painter in the Nabis style. She came from a family of painters and sculptors. Her mother was a poet and sculptor. Her uncle was a painter and engraver who taught artists like Mary Cassatt. Chaplin began painting with no formal training. After moving to Tuscany as a child, she taught herself by copying from classic works at the Uffizi Gallery. The Chaplin family moved to Rome in 1916 and it was there she met Paul-Albert Besnard, a French painter and printmaker who would become one of her mentors. The artist’s work often features colorful family scenes and portraiture. She exhibited widely in Italy before moving to Paris in the late 1930s, where she created large-scale public works at Notre-Dame de Salut and Saint Esprit and was awarded the French Republic’s Legion of Honor. Later in life, the artist settled in Fiesole and was honored with shows in Florence’s most prestigious venues such as Palazzo Strozzi, and a posthumous exhibition in Palazzo Vecchio.

She is known for her portraiture and Tuscan landscapes, most of which reside in Florence's Pitti Palace’s Gallery of Modern Art collection. She has two self-portraits in the Vasari Corridor collection. Today we present a very intimate portrait of her sister playing the violin. Beautiful!

If you would like to explore more art created by women artists, please check our Notebooks and Postcards.  :)

P.S. Discover the intimate portrayal of the famous writer Virginia Woolf painted by her sister Vanessa Bell!  And if you want to see more portraits of sisters in art, check out our article below!