Philippe de Champaigne

Private collection, Germany;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 9 June 2020, lot 262;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Claude de Bullion (1569-1640), one of the most powerful figures at the court of Louis XIII and a close ally of Cardinal Richelieu, served as France’s Minister of Finance from 1632 until his death in 1640. Here dressed in a black velvet robe and white ruff, the sitter prominently wears the star-shaped and Holy-dove-adorned badge of the Order of Saint-Esprit. Bullion served as Lord Chancellor of the prestigious royal order from 1633 to 1636, during which time Phillipe de Champaigne likely executed this painting. 

The present work is an autograph version of the portrait now at Knole House, Surrey (National Trust, inv. no. NT 129833). Both panels–practically identical in their dimensions–depict the aristocrat and politician with remarkable sensitivity and psychological depth. Champaigne, whose practice was shaped both by his Flemish training and his influential Parisian career—displays his confident brushwork and fluid technique, evident in the subtle modulation of light across the sitter’s face and the deft rendering of his white ruff.

Bullion also appears in one of Champaigne’s most ambitious state compositions, The Reception of the Henri d’Orleans, Duke of Longueville into the Order of Saint-Esprit by King Louis XIII, 15 May 1633 (Toulouse, Musée des Augustins, inv. No. 2004.1.57), where he is depicted alongside the King and other high-ranking members of the Order.