Nicolas de Largillière Paris 1656 - 1746

Pobably Yves-Joseph-Charles Pommyer;
Probably Jacque-Jean-Baptiste-Simon Pommyer, and thence by descent to
Marquise de Pommyer de Rougement, widow of the Marquis de Pommyer (said to have died circa 1880 in Paris);
Baron Alfred de Rosée by 1928;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Continental Family of Title"), London, Christie's, December 10, 1993, lot 46 (as inscribed on the relining canvas Peint par N. de Largillière en 1722), there purchased by the present collector.

Paris, Palais des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris [Petit Palais], N. de Largilliere, 1928, p. 142, no. 128 (as a Memeber of the Ormesson Family). 

M.N. Rosenfeld, Largillièrre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait, exhibition catalogue, Montreal 1982, p. 260, under cat. no. 52, reproduced fig. 52b.

In the first quarter of the 18th Century, Largillière completed a series of portraits of the aristocratic Pommyer family, representing Yves-Joseph, the head of the family, his wife and seven children.  The series, sold in Christie's, London, December 10, 1993 (see Provenance below) had remained as a group together with three other pastels of the family. 

The present portrait depicts François-Emmanuel who became Abbé of Bonneval, Conseiler de la Grande Chambre de Parlement, honorary Deacon of the Metropolitan church of Reims, Canon of Saint-Martin of Tours, Président de la Chambre Souveraine du Clergé.  In addition to this, he was also an honorary, and very active, member of the Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture.  Pommyer was well known in artistic circles and befriended artists such as Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Jean- Siméon Chardin and Charles-Nicholas Cochin.  He was even present at the appointment of François Boucher to the position of Premier Peintre du Roi on July 30, 1768.

A double portrait of François-Emmanuel and his twin brother Yves-Joseph from the above listed series, also by Largillière, was sold in these rooms on May 23, 2001, lot 31.