Portrait Philip V King Rigaud Paint Oil on canvas 17/18th Century Old master Art

1695-1720

18th century English painter William Hogarth (London 1697 - 1764) School of Hudibras Triomphante (from the poem by Samuel Butler) Circa 1740, England Oil on canvas (62 x 50 cm. - F...

Louis Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707- Paris 1771) attributable Portrait of a noblewoman with her little dog Oil on canvas (79 x 66 cm. - with frame 92 x 78 cm.) A qualitative portrait depicting an elegant noblewoman of French origin, presumably belonging to the wealthy court of Versailles during the reign of Louis XV; this work fully reflects the pictorial qualities as well as the refinement of the compositional style of the French painter Louis Michel van Loo (1707- 1771), one of the most significant portrait painters of his time, and for this reason in demand at the most noble European courts. The work, taking up the traditional formula for portraits of members of the aristocracy, shows the effigy in a half-length pose, slightly turned to the right and looking directly at the viewer. The woman, with a regal bearing, is here portrayed intent on completing her daily beauty ritual, wearing a cape during her make-up, which must have just been completed as pink powder is visible on her cheeks. This luxurious garment reveals a corset with a daring neckline, made of silk and lace, and a coral-coloured dress ending in wide jabote cuffs. Her hair is styled in the French fashion in a hairstyle that highlights her facial features. Having finished her beauty ritual, the woman is intent on removing her cape with one hand, an elegant gesture that emphasises her noble pose. At her side is her small pet dog, sitting on a blue velvet cushion with gold trim. The canvas may have been made on the occasion of a wedding, elegantly celebrating the role of a member of the aristocracy. The presence of the pet depicted in her arms had in fact a precise meaning: the fidelity that is such a well-known characteristic of the dog, declared at the same time the virtues of the effigy. Louis Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707- Paris 1771) was the son of the painter Jean Baptiste van Loo, with whom he studied in Rome and Turin. He attended the Paris Academy, where he won the first prize for painting in 1726. In 1728 he returned to Rome, where he met Francois Boucher. In 1732, passing through Turin, he returned to Paris. In 1737 van Loo became court painter in Madrid, succeeding Jean Ranc...

Provenance: Bradley Collection. Private Collection, Upperville, Virginia. Literature: Katlijne van der Stighelen and Hans Vlieghe, Rubens: Portraits of Unidentified and Newly Identified Sitters painted in Antwerp, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol. 19, pt. 3, London and Turnhout, 2021, under cat. no. 189, p. 161, and fig. 75. This painting had previously been considered to be by an anonymous Tuscan painter of the sixteenth century in the orbit of Agnolo Bronzino. While the painting does in fact demonstrate a striking formal and compositional similarity to Bronzino’s portraits—compare the nearly identical pose of Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 1)—its style is completely foreign to Italian works of the period. That it is painted on an oak panel is further indication of its non-Italian origin. This portrait can in fact be confidently attributed to the Antwerp artist Huybrecht Beuckelaer. Huybrecht, the brother of Joachim Beuckelaer, has only recently been identified as the author of a distinct body of work formerly grouped under the name of the “Monogrammist HB.” In recent studies by Kreidl, Wolters, and Bruyn his remarkable career has been delineated: from its beginnings with Joachim in the workshop of Pieter Aertsen; to his evident travels to Italy where, it has been suggested, he came into contact with Bronzino’s paintings; to his return to Antwerp, where he seems to have assisted Anthonis Mor in painting costume in portraits; to his independent work in Antwerp (where he entered the Guild of Saint Luke in 1579); and, later to his career in England where, known as “Master Hubberd,” he was patronized by the Earl of Leicester. Our painting was recently published by Dr. Katlijne van der Stighelen and Dr. Hans Vlieghe in a volume of the Corpus Rubenianum, in which they write that the painting “has a very Italian air about it and fits convincingly within [Beuckelaer’s] oeuvre.” Stighelen and Vlieghe compare the painting with Peter Paul Ruben’s early Portrait of a Man, Possibly an Architect or Geographer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in which the sitter holds a compass and wears a similarly styled doublet (Fig. 2). Huybrecht both outlived and travelled further afield than his brother Joachim, who made his career primarily in Antwerp. Whereas Joachim was the main artistic inheritor of their uncle and teacher, Pieter Aertson, working in similar style and format as a specialist in large-scale genre and still-life paintings, Huybrecht clearly specialized as a painter of portraits and was greatly influenced by the foreign artists and works he encountered on his travels. His peripatetic life and his distinctly individual hand undoubtedly contributed to the fact his career and artistic output have only recently been rediscovered and reconstructed. His periods abroad seem to have overlapped with the mature phase of his brother Joachim’s career, who enrolled in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke much earlier than his brother, establishing himself as an independent painter in 1560. Joachim’s activity was confined to the following decade and half, and his latest work dates from the last year of his life, 1574. Our portrait was likely produced in the late 1560s, a dating supported by the dendrochronological investigation performed by Dr. Peter Klein, which established that it is painted on an oak panel with an earliest felling date of 1558 and with a fabrication date of ca. 1566. This painting presents a portrait of an artist, almost certainly Huybrecht’s self-portrait. The young sitter is confidently posed in a striking patterned white doublet with a wide collar and an abundance of buttons. He stands with his right arm akimbo, his exaggerated hands both a trademark of Huybrecht and his brother Joachim’s art, as well as a possible reference to the “hand of the artist.” The figure peers out of the painting, interacting intimately and directly with the viewer, as we witness him posed in an interior, the tools and results of his craft visible nearby. He holds a square or ruler in his left hand, while a drawing compass...

Fleur de Neige by Jan Van Beers, painted in July 1880, stands out for the delicacy of its depiction. This remarkable portrait depicts a woman dressed in a sumptuous white costume, ad...