Offered by Galerie Nicolas Lenté
16th to 18th century furniture, paintings and works of art
Nicolas de Largillièrre (Paris, 1656-1746)
Portrait of a woman, circa 1705
18th century French school
Oil on canvas: h. 78 cm, l. 60 cm
Carved giltwood Louis XIV style frame
Framed: h. 98 cm, l.80 cm
We are grateful to Mr. Dominique Brême, director of the museum of the Domaine départemental de Sceaux and specialist of Nicolas de Largillièrre, for kindly confirming the attribution to the artist and the date around 1705 by a visual examination of this portrait which he will include in the catalog raisonné of the artist currently being prepared .
Provenance: probably the collection of the Habsburg-Lorraine family, according to the label on the reverse with the coat of arms of Peter Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine (1747-1792).
Placed in the middle of the warm foliage of an autumnal landscape, the young woman immortalized by one of the best portrait painters of the 18th century takes us into very high French society during the reign of Louis XIV.
Light radiates from her figure with translucent white and pink flesh, wrapped in a sumptuous red satin cloak, which gives the dominant color to the painting,
Featuring a rather high hairstyle " la Fontange", decorated with flowers, her dark brown hair frames her solemn face. The brown eyes, lively and intelligent, surrounded by delicate lines of her eyelashes and her slightly pursed lips give character to her face.
No jewels, tiaras, or clasps to compete her fresh complexions, the false simplicity cannot make us forget the magnificence of the fabrics. Her throat emerges from her bodice in white satin shining with silver, embroidered with gold threads creating many sparkling points catching light.
With brilliance the artist composes the tumultuous volumes with the angular and brittle folds of his red satin coat, the plastic research is combined with the variation of nuances in the color under the effect of intense lighting. As usual a silver border with nervous and interrupted lines borders the ends of the fabric.
The chromatic opposition of warm and cold colors characteristic of the painter finds all its splendor here with the shimmering of the red satin and the shimmering of the white satin.
The tight framing propels the model who appears to us with all the intensity of life and in all the splendor of her rank, the elegance of the staging reflects the magnificence and the dazzling luxury of the receptions of the royal court under the reign of Louis XIV.
Nicolas de Largillière (Paris, 1656-1746)
Nicolas de Largilliere, born October 2, 1656 in Paris, where he died March 20, 1746, is a French painter. Of Flemish origin although born in Paris, he spent his childhood in Antwerp apprenticed to the landscape painter Antoine Goubau. In 1673 he went to England where he worked as an assistant in the studio of the portrait painter Peter Lely for several years. Largillierre discovered the art of portraiture in London and assimilated the beautiful lessons of the British successor of Antoine van Dyck. On his return to France he was accepted at the Royal Academy in 1683 and was received three years later as a "painter of portraits and history" upon presentation of the Portrait of Charles Le Brun.
He is one of the most renowned portrait painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Nicolas de Largillière's long career spanned the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, during which he established himself as a leading portrait painter. His female effigies, in particular, are striking for their introspective character and decorative richness.
