Louis-François-Armand Vignerot du Plessis (1696–1788), 3rd Duke of Richelieu, held a prominent position at the court of Louis XV. The great-grandnephew of Cardinal Richelieu, he enjoyed a brilliant yet turbulent youth, marked by numerous love affairs and duels that led to several periods of imprisonment in the Bastille. He subsequently pursued a distinguished military career: appointed Marshal of France in 1748, he was named Governor of Guyenne and Gascony in 1755.
The present portrait depicts the Duke of Richelieu at the time of his admission to the Order of the Holy Spirit in January 1729. At only thirty-two years of age, he received this distinction by exceptional favour, as knights were ordinarily admitted to the Order only from the age of thirty-five. He is shown wearing the novice’s habit, consisting of a white satin suit trimmed with Spanish point lace, a short black velvet mantle draped over his shoulders, and a hat adorned with white ostrich feathers. Beside him, the great ceremonial mantle, laid across a canapé by a servant, awaits the investiture ceremony. Embroidered in gold and silver on black velvet strewn with flames, it is accompanied by the collar of the Order, from which hangs the enamelled cross suspended from its celestial-blue ribbon.
Three versions of this composition are currently known. The monumental version (239 x 179.5 cm), signed and dated “Nattier pinxit 1732”, was painted by Jean-Marc Nattier for the dining room of the Château de Richelieu. Its presence there is recorded around 1750 and again in 1835 [1]. It subsequently entered the art market and is now in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. Two reduced versions of almost identical dimensions (approximately 81 x 60 cm) complete the group. One has been in the Wallace Collection, London, since the nineteenth century; the other is the present painting, which has only recently reappeared on the art market. In the study devoted to the Wallace Collection version, John Ingamells, former Director of the institution, traced its provenance back to auction sales of the 1820s and noted that this reduced version had been attributed to Louis Tocqué from its earliest appearances on the art market.
As for the present painting, it was offered for sale at the Palais Galliera in 1970 under the name of Louis-Michel Van Loo. Several factors, however, support its reassignment to the circle of Jean-Marc Nattier, and more specifically to his pupil Louis Tocqué. Its dimensions correspond exactly to those of the Wallace Collection version, while its remarkable quality of execution, together with the presence of subtle variations and pentimenti, point to a carefully conceived work rather than a straightforward copy. These two reduced versions therefore appear to have been produced within the same campaign of studio replicas, undertaken in response to the success enjoyed by Nattier’s large-scale portrait. Furthermore, as John Ingamells rightly observed, the descriptions in the early auction catalogues attributing the reduced version to Tocqué could apply equally to the Wallace Collection painting or to the present work, since the catalogue entries alone do not provide sufficient detail to distinguish between the two versions.
Far from being a slavish replica of the monumental composition, the present painting possesses a distinct character of its own. Its more intimate format enhances the virtuosity of the execution: the gold and silver embroidery catches the light with remarkable brilliance, while the sumptuous fabrics reveal the full subtlety of the artist’s brushwork. The Duke’s face retains the presence and self-assurance characteristic of the work of an accomplished portraitist. These qualities are entirely consistent with the art of Louis Tocqué. Orphaned at the age of ten, Tocqué entered Jean-Marc Nattier’s studio at an early age and later became his son-in-law. He was agréé (approved) by the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1731 and received into the Académie as a portrait painter in 1734, a distinction that remained relatively uncommon within an institution that accorded primacy to history painting. Exhibiting regularly at the Salon between 1737 and 1759, he established himself as one of the most sought-after portraitists of his generation before being invited to the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia and subsequently to that of King Frederick V of Denmark.
Tocqué’s technique displays close affinities with that of Nattier, both in the staging of his sitters and in the refinement of his execution, the delicacy of the flesh tones, and his meticulous rendering of textiles. Probably dating from the beginning of his artistic maturity, shortly after his agrément to the Académie Royale, the present work already demonstrates these defining qualities. Tocqué would later paint another portrait of the Duke of Richelieu, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours. By then older, the sitter is shown against a dark background, from which his face emerges with the same air of confidence that helped establish the Marshal’s reputation.
The identification of the sitter itself forms a particularly intriguing chapter in the history of this composition. When Nattier’s painting was offered at Christie’s in 1926, it was catalogued as a portrait of Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre. This was also the identification adopted by François-Jean Garneray when he reproduced the composition in his Galerie Dorée de l’Hôtel de Toulouse of 1816. In 1905, Pierre de Nolhac instead proposed that the sitter should be identified as Louis d’Orléans, son of the Regent. It was not until the publication in 1971 of Jacques Levron’s monograph on Marshal Richelieu, whose frontispiece reproduced an engraving of the Duke after Van Loo, that John Ingamells was able, during the 1980s, to establish the true identity of the sitter in all three known versions: the Duke of Richelieu.
Viewed in this context, the present painting rightly resumes its place within the fascinating history of this composition. Alongside the versions preserved in Lisbon and London, it bears witness to the exceptional quality of works produced within Jean-Marc Nattier’s immediate circle and illustrates the close artistic relationship between the master and his most gifted pupil, Louis Tocqué.
D. G.
