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Portrait of Anne Louis Goislard de Montsabert, Comte de Richbourg-le-Toureil
Nicolas de Largillière (French, 1656–1746)
1734
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 108.5 x 91.5 x 11 cm (42 11/16 x 36 x 4 5/16 in.); Unframed: 80.6 x 63.8 cm (31 3/4 x 25 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
By positioning the figure close to the picture plane and engulfed in a swirl of drapery, Nicolas de Largillière created a remarkably informal likeness of the 26-year-old Goislard. This impression is enhanced by the sitter’s open shirt and the drift of wig powder that dusts the shoulders of his velvet doublet. Warm hues and thick brushstrokes reveal the artist’s study of earlier Flemish painters, notably Anthony van Dyck. Despite his youth and seeming nonchalance, Goislard was a figure of prominence. He may have commissioned this work to commemorate his appointment to the Parlement, or governing council, of France in 1732, or earning the title Lord of Montsabert the following year.
