Nicolas de Largillière

Presumed portrait of Princess de Conti, Marie-Anne de Bourbon

circa 1730

Nicolas de Largilliere (Paris, 1656-1746) Born in Paris, Nicolas de Largilliere spent his childhood in Antwerp. Trained there in the studio of Antoine Goubeau, who taught him the study from nature, Nicolas de Largillierre remained faithful to his precepts throughout his career. In 1673 he went to England where he worked as an assistant in the studio of the portrait painter Peter Lely for almost seven years. He was approved by the Royal Academy upon his return to France in 1683 and was received three years later as "painter of portraits and history"). The portrait is by far the genre that dominates an immense production of nearly 1,500 works produced in a workshop through which many renowned painters will pass. He is with Rigaud the most brilliant portraitist of the end of the XVIIth and the beginning of the XVIIIth century. Rigaud, however, is the official court portraitist, Largillierre works mainly for a wealthy bourgeois clientele. His work brilliantly illustrates the French high society under the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV, by an exceptional sense of observation he was able to render, sometimes without complacency, the individuality of the faces and the psychology of the characters.