Nicolas de LARGILLIERRE (1656-1746) Portrait of... Lot 88

Nicolas de LARGILLIERRE (1656-1746) Portrait of Gaspard Charles-Guillaume de Vintimille, Bishop of Marseille Re-backed canvas 62.5 x 51.5 cm In its Louis XV carved and gilded oak frame. PROVENANCE : - Paris, Drouot, Sale, December 1, 1995, n°50, reproduced - Private collection, Paris BIBLIOGRAPHY : - Catalog of the exhibition Largillièrre, portraitiste du XVIIIe siècle, Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1981, annexe II, P. 390 NOTE: - The painting will be included in the future catalog raisonné of the artist being prepared by Dominique BRÊME. - Our painting was already known from a print, preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale, by H. COUSSIN, engraver in Aix (1709-1779) (Estampas, Sortais, Da 58, t. V, see also the Montreal exhibition catalog cited above). Although there are variations, notably in the position of the hands and certain details of the costume, we can identify the model with certainty: Charles Gaspard Guillaume de Vintimille des Comtés de Marseille, bishop of Marseille. - Although neither the painting nor the engraving are dated, the date of the marriage contract between Nicolas de Largillierre and Marguerite-Elisabeth Forest, drawn up in Paris on August 19, 1699, constitutes a terminus ante quem for our portrait. Indeed, this document (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, X, 251, published as an appendix to the Montreal exhibition catalog, p.390) includes an inventory of Largillierre's estate and mentions, on the verso of the fourth sheet, a debt by "Monsieur l'Esveque de Marseille" of "deux cens quarante neuf livres x s(ols)" (249 livres et dix sols). As the painting no longer appears in the inventory of works kept in the artist's studio at this date, we can legitimately assume that it had already been completed and delivered to its commissioner.