Lot 78
  • 78

Hyacinthe Rigaud

Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 GBP
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Description

  • Hyacinthe Rigaud
  • Portrait of Pierre-Vincent Bertin (circa1654 - 1711)
  • oil on canvas

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Monaco, Christie's, 20 June 1992, lot 91, when acquired by the late owner.

Literature

J. Roman, Le Livre de Raison du Peintre Hyacinthe Rigaud, Paris 1919, p. 10;
S. Perreau, Hyacinth Rigaud. Le Peintre des Rois, Montpellier 2004, p. 40, reproduced fig. 23.

ENGRAVED:
By Pierre Drevet (Derivet), Paris, 1688 (fig. 1);
By Franz Ertinger, Paris (n.d.).

Condition

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly old lining and stretcher, which are both still firm and strong. The restoration is fairly recent, with traces of earlier varnish and retouching at the edges, particularly in the corners. There are various old, comparatively minor, accidental damages: a three cornered tear in the upper background (4 x 1 inches), another in the upper right background (2 x 4 inches), two other small old knocks in the upper left background, a quite broad patch of retouching in the centre of the satin drapery (3 x 2 inches), a band of retouching along the tips of the fingers on the chest, which might cover some wear as well as visible pentimenti, one small retouching on the palm of the other hand, and a retouched damage at the top of the forehead by the hairline. Occasional other minor recent retouchings can be seen under UV along the middle of stretcher bar line on the right, under the chin and under the lace jabot, and by the edges and corners. The thinner areas of the background may also have been lightly strengthened in the past, at the lower centre on the left and in the middle where the light from the sky fades down into shadows and where the original was thinly painted to start with. Although in some other areas the light touch of the original brushwork has become less substantial and slightly blurred over time, in the hair for example, the modelling of the head itself remains perceptively defined and strong as does the magnificence of the drapery and the powerful image overall. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

This is an important early work by Rigaud, painted at the very threshold of his career in 1685, just four years after his arrival in Paris. It can be securely dated by its inclusion for that year in the artist's Livre de raison or sitters book, when he charged 300 livres for it1. It is unique, for no other version of this design is mentioned in the Livre de raison, neither in 1685 nor in any following year. That Bertin, a minister of State and a noted collector and patron of the arts, should have sat to this young artist is in itself testament to Rigaud's evident precocity.

It seems that Rigaud had intended from an early stage to realise his talents as a portraitist. Although the winner of the Prix de Rome in 1682 at the Académie Royale for his Cain building the city of Enoch (now lost), at the encouragement of its Director, Charles le Brun, he declined the winner's scholarship in Italy in favour of establishing his own portrait practice. That same year he painted a portrait of his fellow-painter Charles de la Fosse, now in Berlin. In 1684 he was approved (agrée) as a member of the Académie, and formally received some six years later. Rigaud's early works betray a conspicuous debt to the art of the great 17th-century Flemish painter Sir Anthony van Dyck. The present work, like the portrait of De la Fosse, shares the latter's realistic depiction of features and bravura rendering of material and texture, and equally the relaxed but dignified pose. Dézallier d'Argenville, writing in the following century, noted that 'when he (Rigaud) painted velvet, satin, taffeta, fur or lace, one had to touch them to realise they were not the real thing. Wigs and hair, which are so difficult to paint, were but a game for him; the hands in his paintings are particularly divine.'2

Pierre-Vincent Bertin (c.1654-1711) held government office successively as Trésorier de la Chancellerie, Trésorier des parties casuelles, and finally as Conseiller Secrétaire du Roi. Described by Alexandre du Pradel as a 'fameux curieux des ouvrages magnifiques', he amassed in his hôtel on the rue Saint Augustin a notable collection of paintings and works of art. According to Brice: 'on peut admirer des meubles et curiosités d'un choix extraordinaire, de rares tableaux des plus fameux maîtres dont le Christ apparaissant à la Madeleine du Titien, acquis de Colbert de Seignelay'.4  The Noli me Tangere is today in the National Gallery in London5 (fig. 2), while other notable works included Giorgione's Judith6 and Veronese's Adoration of the Magi,7 both today in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Bertin later sat to Nicolas de Largillière at half-length in 1694, but the original is lost.

 

1. See J. Roman, under Literature, p. 10: 'Monsr Bertin (trésorier général des parties casuelles)...330l'.
2. Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, Paris 1745-52 and 1762.
3. Les addresses de Paris, Paris 1692, vol. I, p. 222.
4. G. Brice, Description nouvelle de la ville de Paris, Paris 1698.
5. Inv. no. 270; see C. Gould, National Gallery Catalogues. The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1975, pp. 275-76.
6. J. Anderson, Giorgione, Paris and New York 1997, p. 292, reproduced.
7. T. Pignatti, Veronese, Venice 1976, vol. I, p. 188, no. A138.