A Largillierre for Draguignan

1. Nicolas de Largillierre (1656-1746)
Portrait of Gaspard Charles Guillaume de Vintimille, before 1699
Oil on canvas - 62.5 x 51.5 cm
Draguignan, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Joron-Derem

See the image in its page

3/7/24 - Acquisition - Draguignan, Musée des Beaux-Arts - Visitors to the Draguignan museum, whose reopening was a big event last November (see our article), will know that its director, Yohan Rimaud, has successfully relaunched its acquisitions policy: his fine dynamism continues unabated, and even keeps attracting connoisseurs and patrons like the Fondation La Marck, which has just given the institution this portrait by Nicolas de Largillierre (ill. 1), preempted at Drouot through the good offices of the emissary from Orléans who had come to acquire the superb pastel by Marie-Gabrielle Capet (see news item of 29/9/24). Sold for €10,800 hammer - or €14,040 including fees - by Christophe Joron-Derem, this pleasant effigy of a courtly prelate with a good-natured yet firm countenance was in fact almost destined for the Draguignan museum, since Gaspard Charles Guillaume de Vintimille (1655-1746) was born thirty kilometres away, at the Château du Luc, where one of the masterpieces now conserved in the museum was seized during the Revolution: the splendid ceremonial half-armour of François de Montmorency, the eldest son of the Constable who became Governor of Paris and Marshal of France. A family home, the château where the ecclesiastic was born was itself sold as national property, but has survived the centuries, as has the memory of the prelate who had a brilliant career. As the nephew of Jacques de Vintimille, bishop of Digne and then Toulon, he was destined to take holy orders and was first appointed to the see of Marseille in 1692, before going on to become archbishop of Aix-en-Provence in 1708 and then of Paris in 1729.

2. Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743)
Portrait of Gaspard Charles Guillaume de Vintimille, 1731
Oil…