Portrait of Nicolas Fouquet (1615-1680)

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Philippe de Champaigne
Portrait of Nicolas Fouquet (1615-1680)

$24,385.74List Price

About the Item

Studio of Philip de Champaigne Portrait of Nicolas Fouquet (1615-1680) Oil on canvas Inscribed with sitters identity on the original canvas Canvas size - 22 x 17 in Framed size - 29 1/2 x 24 in Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (23 February 1615 – 23 March 1680) was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He had a glittering career, and acquired enormous wealth. He fell out of favor, accused of peculation (maladministration of the state's funds) and lèse-majesté (actions harmful to the well-being of the monarch). The king had him imprisoned from 1661 until his death in 1680. Fouquet was born in Paris to an influential family of the noblesse de robe and, after some preliminary schooling with the Jesuits at the age of 13, was admitted as avocat at the Parlement of Paris. While still in his teens, he held several positions of responsibility, and in 1636, at just 20, he was able to buy the post of maître des requêtes for 150,000 livres. In 1640, he married the rich Louise Fourché, who died a year later. From 1642 to 1650, he held various intendancies, at first in the provinces and then with the army of chief minister Cardinal Mazarin and, coming thus in touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris. During Mazarin's exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court. Upon Mazarin's return, Fouquet demanded and received as reward the office of superintendent of the finances (1653), a position that, in the unsettled condition of the government, threw into his hands not merely the decision as to which funds should be applied to meet the demands of the state's creditors but also the negotiations with the great financiers who lent money to the king. The appointment was a popular one with the moneyed class, for Fouquet's great wealth had been largely augmented by his marriage in 1651 to Marie de Castille, who belonged to a wealthy family of the legal nobility in Spain. Fouquet received around 160,000 Livres from the marriage dowry. His own credit, and above all his unfailing confidence in himself, strengthened the credit of the government, while his high position at the parlement (he still remained procureur général) secured financial transactions from investigation. As minister of finance, he soon had Mazarin almost in the position of a supplicant. The long wars, and the greed of the courtiers, who followed the example of Mazarin, made it necessary at times for Fouquet to meet the demands upon him by borrowing upon his own credit, but he soon turned this confusion of the public purse with his own to good account. The disorder in the accounts became hopeless; fraudulent operations were entered into with impunity, and the financiers were kept in the position of clients by official favours and by generous aid whenever they needed it. Fouquet's fortune now surpassed even Mazarin's, but the latter was too deeply implicated in similar operations to interfere, and was obliged to leave the day of reckoning to his agent and successor Jean-Baptiste Colbert. His closest friend, and maybe mistress, was Suzanne de Rougé, the Marquise du Plessis-Bellière. Upon Mazarin's death in 1661, Fouquet expected to be made head of the government; but Louis XIV was suspicious of his poorly disguised ambition, and it was with Fouquet in mind that he made the well-known statement, upon assuming the government, that Louis would be his own chief minister. Colbert, perhaps seeking to succeed Fouquet, fed the king's displeasure with adverse reports upon the deficit and made the worst of the case against Fouquet. The extravagant expenditures and displays of the superintendent's wealth served to intensify the ill will of the king. Fouquet had bought the port of Belle-Île-en-Mer and strengthened the fortifications with a view to taking refuge there in case of disgrace. He had spent enormous sums in building a magnificent château on his estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte, which in extent, magnificence and splendour of decoration was a forerunner of the Palace of Versailles and where he brought together three artists that the King would later take up for Versailles: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, and the garden designer André le Nôtre. Here he gathered the rarest manuscripts, paintings, jewels and antiques in profusion, and above all surrounded himself with artists and authors. The table was open to all people of quality, and the kitchen was presided over by François Vatel. Jean de La Fontaine, Pierre Corneille and Paul Scarron were a few of the many artists who enjoyed his patronage. The coat of arms of Fouquet's family traditionally showed a squirrel and bore the motto "Quo non ascendet?" ("What heights will he not scale?"). The symbol can be found in many rooms and decorations at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The choice of this animal derives from the name foucquet, which in the dialect of Angers (in the west of France) means squirrel. By August 1661, Louis XIV was already set upon Fouquet's destruction (his disgrace was secretly decided upon on 4 May). Louis was entertained at Vaux with a fête rivaled in magnificence by only one or two others in French history, at which Molière's Les Fâcheux was produced for the first time. The splendour of the entertainment sealed Fouquet's fate. But the king, then only 22 years old, was afraid to act openly against so powerful a minister. As Superintendent, Fouquet headed the enormously wealthy and influential corps of partisans (tax farmers), who, if challenged as a group, could have caused the king serious trouble. By crafty devices, Fouquet was induced to sell his office of procureur général, thus losing the protection of its privileges, and he paid the price of it into the treasury. After his visit to Vaux, the king announced that he was going to Nantes for the opening of the meeting of the provincial estates of Brittany. He required his ministers, including Fouquet, to go with him. When Fouquet was leaving the council chamber, flattered with the assurance of the king's esteem, he was arrested by Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, lieutenant of the king's musketeers. The trial lasted almost three years, and its violation of the forms of justice is still the subject of frequent monographs by members of the French bar. Louis acted throughout "as though he were conducting a campaign"[citation needed], evidently fearing that Fouquet would play the part of a Richelieu. A report of his trial was published in the Netherlands, in 15 volumes, in 1665-67, in spite of the remonstrances which Colbert addressed to the Estates-General. A second edition under the title of Oeuvres de M. Fouquet appeared in 1696. During the trial, French public sympathy turned to support Fouquet. La Fontaine, Madame de Sévigné, Jean Loret, and many others wrote on his behalf; but when Fouquet was sentenced to banishment, the king, disappointed, "commuted" the sentence to imprisonment for life. In December 1664, Fouquet was taken to the prison fortress of Pignerol. There, Eustache Dauger, the man identified by historical research as the Man in the Iron Mask but whose name was never spoken or written, served as one of Fouquet's valets. His wife was not allowed to write to him until 1672; she was allowed to visit him only once, in 1679. The former minister bore his imprisonment with fortitude and composed several translations and devotionals in prison Philippe de Champaigne (26 May 1602 – 12 August 1674) was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, the premier art institution in France in the eighteenth century. Born of a poor family in Brussels (Duchy of Brabant, Southern Netherlands), during the reign of the Archduke Albert and Isabella, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières. In 1621 he moved to Paris, where he worked with Nicolas Poussin on the decoration of the Palais du Luxembourg under the direction of Nicolas Duchesne, whose daughter he married. According to Houbraken, Duchesne was angry at Champaigne for becoming more popular than he was at court, and this is why Champaigne returned to Brussels to live with his brother. It was only after he received news of Duchesne's death that he returned to marry his daughter. After the death of his protector Duchesne, Champaigne worked for the Queen Mother, Marie de Medicis, for whom he participated in the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace. He made several paintings for the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, dating from 1638. He also drew several cartoons for tapestries. He was made first painter of the Queen with a pension of 1200 pounds. He also decorated the Carmelite Church of Faubourg Saint-Jacques, one of the favourite churches of the Queen Mother. This site was destroyed during the French Revolution, but there are several paintings now preserved in museums, that were part of the original design. The Presentation in the Temple is in Dijon, the Resurrection of Lazarus is in Grenoble and the Assumption of the Virgin is in the Louvre. He also worked for Cardinal Richelieu, for whom he decorated the Palais Cardinal, the dome of the Sorbonne and other buildings. Champaigne was the only artist who was allowed to paint Richelieu enrobed as a cardinal, which he did eleven times. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1648. Later in his life (from 1640 onwards), he came under the influence of Jansenism. After his paralysed daughter was allegedly miraculously cured at the nunnery of Port-Royal, he painted the celebrated but atypical picture Ex-Voto de 1662, now in the Louvre, which represents the artist's daughter with Mother-Superior Agnès Arnauld. Champaigne produced a very large number of paintings, mainly religious works and portraits. Influenced by Rubens at the beginning of his career, his style later became more austere. Philippe de Champaigne remains an exceptional painter thanks to the brilliance of the colors in his paintings and the stern strength of his compositions. He portrayed the entire French court, the French high nobility, royalty, high members of the church and the state, parliamentarians and architects, and other notable people. His portrait of the poet Vincent Voiture was created around 1649 as the frontispiece for Voiture's published Works (published posthumously in 1650). The portrait is highly unusual in that Champaigne later reworked it as a portrait of a religious figure, Saint Louis (King Louis IX), to enable Voiture's daughter to keep it with her when she entered a convent. His works can be seen in public buildings, private collections, churches such as Val-de-Grâce, Sorbonne, Saint Severin, Saint-Merri, Saint-Médard and in the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Port in Clermont-Ferrand. Champaigne was prominent enough in his time as to be mentioned in Cyrano de Bergerac in a line by Ragueneau referencing Cyrano: "Truly, I should not look to find his portrait By the grave hand of Philippe de Champagne." His pupils were his nephew Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, William Faithorne, Jean Morin, and Nicolas de Plattemontagne. During his last period Champaigne painted mainly religious subjects and family members. He died in Paris in 1674.

Creator:
Philippe de Champaigne (1602 - 1674)
Dimensions:
Height: 29.5 in (74.93 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)
Medium:
Oil
Movement & Style:
Old Masters
Period:
17th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Stoke, GB
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU44636305322

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