Nicolas de Largillière French School, 1656-1746

 

Nicolas de Largillierre, one of Europe's premier painters of portraits, history paintings, and still lifes during the late seventeenth century and the first four decades of the eighteenth, was born in Paris in 1656. He was the son of a hatmaker and merchant who moved with his family to Antwerp in 1659. As a boy of nine, he traveled for the first time to London in the company of an associate of his father. After returning to Antwerp more than a year later, his artistic gifts were recognized and his father apprenticed him to Antoni Goubau (1616-1698), a painter genre scenes and landscapes. Something of a prodigy, he was admitted to the painters' Guild of Saint Luke when he was only seventeen. In 1675 he made a second trip to London, where he was employed at Windsor Castle and worked as a restorer under the direction of Italian painter and decorator Antonio Verrio (c. 1639-1707), who brought him to the attention of King Charles II (r. 1660-1685).

 

At this time Largillierre painted several still life paintings in the manner of the Dutch and Flemish masters. Thereafter he practiced this branch of painting with consummate skill, a talent that allowed him to make brilliant use of flowers, fruit, and animals in some of his most ambitious portraits and contemporary history pictures.

 

In 1679 Largillierre settled in Paris, where he specialized in baroque portraiture in the grand manner of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), and Peter Lely (1618-1680). The Flemish battle painter Adam Frans van der Meulen (1631 or 1632-1690) introduced him to Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) who, as First Painter to King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) and director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, was the predominant figure in France's official art establishment. Upon his acceptance as a candidate for admission to the Académie, he agreed to execute as his diploma picture a large portrait of Le Brun (completed 1686, Paris, Musée du Louvre) seated in his studio surrounded by the accoutrements of his art and an oil study for the ceiling of Galerie des Glaces at Versailles.

 

In 1686, Largillierre made a final trip to England, where he painted portraits of the newly crowned king, James II (r. 1685-1688) (Greenwich, National Maritime Museum) and his consort Mary of Modena (1658-1718). After the Glorious Revolution, James fell from power, fled to France, and took up residence near Paris at the old Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. For many years thereafter, Largillierre was employed as one of the principal portraitists of the Jacobite court.

 

In 1699, Largillierre married Marguerite Élisabeth Forest, and the couple had three children. He continued to produce moving religious paintings and still, but he acquired his enormous reputation primarily as a portraitist. In contrast to his contemporary Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743), however, he was seldom patronized by the court of Versailles, and much of his clientele was made up of government officials, members of the high clergy, municipal leadership, and judiciary, the Parisian and provincial aristocracy, the wealthiest echelons of the middle class, artists, and foreign dignitaries.

 

In Largillierre's portraiture, subjects are elegantly integrated into indoor or outdoor settings, and the artist often relies on mythological disguises, flurries of drapery, and flamboyant poses to dramatize his characterizations of them. Much of the beauty of his painting resides in a daring exploitation of the resonant colors of his palette, for Largillierre belonged to that group of painters and theorists led by Roger de Piles (1635-1709) who championed the notion that the sensual appeal of color was equal in importance to the more intellectual emphasis on line and design in the creative act of painting.

 

Although Largillierre is known to have produced oil sketches of sitters' faces and hands and studies for his contemporary history pictures, he painted his portraits quickly and directly onto canvas with little or no preparation, relying on scumbles and transparent glazes to achieve the rich and sonorous effects he sought. His enormous output - some 1,500 portraits that are currently being catalogued by Dominique Brême - required him to maintain a workshop manned with studio assistants to whom he delegated the painting of costumes and minor accessories. In the course of his long career he amassed a large fortune and lived on a grand scale. The venerable artist, who had trained Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) and was prescient enough to appreciate the genius of Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), died in 1746 at the age of ninety, having served terms as professor, rector, chancellor, and director of the Académie royale.

 

Largillierre dominated French portrait painting well into his old age: born in 1656, he painted his last portrait in 1741 (at the age of 85). Around 1730, when he was already over 70 years old, he still showed himself to be capable of a singular verve and freshness: the solid framework of his compositions, the assured drawing of his hands, the refined modeling of his complexions and the admirable rendering of fabrics found in the ceremonial portraits of this period are proof of a firm mind, an exceptionally keen eye and a genius that remained intact.

 

 

We have been able to find out a little about the life of Jean Aubert, who lived in Paris, in the Hôtel de Beringhen on rue Saint-Nicaise, a street that no longer exists near the Palais des Tuileries, in the parish of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois.

 

He also owned a house at 18 rue Grande in La Chapelle, a neighboring commune to the north of Paris, on the road to Saint-Denis (this commune was incorporated into Paris in 1860) [1] .

 

Probably born in the late 17th century, Jean Aubert married Marie Catherine Marchand (who died in 1745) around 1725. Originally from Fontainebleau, she was the daughter of a paving contractor to the King and the sister of a contractor to the King's Ponts et Chaussées.

 

They had several children:

• Adrien Aubert
• Henry Camille Aubert (de la Tombelle)
• Nicolas Jean Claude Aubert (de Blaumont)
• Marie Rosalie Aubert
• Jean Jacques Aubert (de la Pernelière)
• Jean Etienne Aubert who died aged 3 in 1728 in the parish of Saint-Louis in Versailles.

 

His children were subsequently the King’s pensioners, in recognition of the services rendered by their late father.

 

Although we have found no information on his family origins, Jean Aubert seems to have belonged to a Parisian bourgeoisie family, and to have had a small fortune which enabled him to successively acquire the position of treasurer of the Menus-Plaisirs de la Petite Écurie du Roi, then, around 1728-1730, that of King's Counselor and General Comptroller of Bridges and Roadways. It seems likely that this ceremonial portrait was commissioned shortly afterwards to celebrate the acquisition of this position.

 

 

Draped in a scarlet cloak almost reminiscent of imperial purple, Jean Aubert is depicted in a green suit [2] , wearing a powdered wig (traces of powder can be seen on the edge of his jacket, at shoulder level), sword at his side. In a setting of austere grandeur, punctuated by columns, the traditional attributes of strength, he stands facing us.

 

Largillierre's talent lies in his daring presentation of a veritable chromatic explosion in the illusionist treatment of shimmering fabrics (brilliant red on the coat, enhanced by eau-du-Nil highlights on the lapel, saffron yellow on the vest and the sleeves of his jacket). These vibrant colors are set off by the muted tones with which they contrast: the gray of the background, the dark green of the jacket, and the black of the desk and wallet.

 

In our opinion, one of the most virtuoso parts of this portrait is the still life on the desk in the lower left-hand corner. In a skillful disarray, Largillierre brings together various attributes of intellectual life: a few books, an inkwell and a silver bell, partly hidden by a letter, a quill and a wax stick, an open wallet. The chromatic range is exclusively in whites and blacks, enhanced by a few touches of red (the stick of wax, the ribbons on the documents located inside the wallet). The treatment of the objects (books, silver inkwell [3] in which the wax stick is reflected) recalls certain compositions by the young Chardin.

 

Monsieur Aubert's ungloved right hand seems to be pointing to the letter addressed to him which indicates his position. It seems to us that the quill resting on the inkwell might suggest that the ink is barely dry, as if to confirm that this painting was indeed commissioned to celebrate his accession to this prestigious position.

 

Just as his right hand seemed supple and abandoned, his left hand, still gloved, energetically grips the second glove, as if to indicate the model's fierce energy and unyielding determination beneath his debonair appearance.

 

In conclusion, the psychological treatment of our "bourgeois gentilhomme" in this portrait seems to us highly successful: the model's corpulence (visible, for example, in the shirt protruding from the half-open vest) becomes an attribute of his social success, and Largillierre succeeds in conferring on this face without any particular grace a great humanity that makes this character sympathetic.

 

 

Three ceremonial portraits by Largillierre, executed between 1724 and 1730, bear interesting similarities to Monsieur Aubert's portrait, particularly if you look at the models' hands.

 

While Monsieur Aubert's right hand is very similar to that of Konrad Detlef (Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum - Brünswick - Germany), his gloved left hand is reminiscent of Barthélemy Jean-Claude Pupil’s portrait (Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art - San Diego - California - USA).

 

In this 1729 portrait, we find more generally a great similarity in the overall attitude of the model, but also in the inclusion of a ledger on the model's right. This opposition between the ungloved right hand and the gloved left hand is a recurrent topos in Largillierre's men portraits from this period, as illustrated by the portrait of Sir Robert Throckmorton (Coughton Court - National Trust - United Kingdom).

 

5. Framing

 

Our painting is framed in a sumptuous Louis XV period rocaille-style frame. Executed in carved and gilded wood, it features pierced cartouches adorned with shells and pear-shaped cabochons, and flowering branches.

 

Catalogue de l’Exposition Largillière – Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Petit Palais) 1928

Catalogue de l’exposition Nicolas de Largillière (1656-1746) – Musée Jacquemart-André Paris

Largillière portraitiste du dix-huitième siècle – Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal 1981