This senior officer, who cannot be identified in the present state of research, must be situated fairly early in Richelieu's output - which includes works by the master and his collaborators, whose presence at his side is attested as early as 1690, if not earlier - and more particularly in the 1690s.

The shape of the wig, rounded at the top of the head and relatively low, as well as the consistency with which the mass of curls is rendered, support this dating. The oval composition, which presents the model in anachronistic armor, lined with tawny velvet hemmed with glittering braid, partly concealed under a blue coat whose reverse coloring recalls that of the cuirass' festoons, all set against a cloudy sky, which is particularly well-suited to evoking the fumes of war, corresponds to the vocabulary that Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743) and his studio liked to use in these years to portray European nobles of the sword.

The harmony of complementary colors - deep lapis lazuli blue and fading tawny gold - is another constant found, for example, in the delicate portrait of the young Duc de Lesdiguières (oil on canvas, 1687, domaine de Vizille, inv. D.2008.1, see Ariane James-Sarazin, Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743), Dijon, Faton, 2016, tome 2, n° P.117, p. 47-48, repr.). The peaceful, somewhat distant air, imbued with a certain melancholy, is more in keeping with what we know of Hyacinthe's younger brother, the painter Gaspard Rigaud (1661-1705), although it is not yet possible to say with certainty whether this beautiful portrait of a senior officer was painted by Hyacinthe, with the collaboration of Gaspard who had joined him in Paris in 1692, but as part of the elder Rigaud's production, or whether it should be entirely attributed to Gaspard.

We would like to thank Ariane James-Sarazin, a specialist in Hyacinthe Rigaud, for her help in drafting this notice.

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