French School, 18th century

This intriguing portrait, which has been in the same family since it was painted, shows three children of the Raby de La Ponte family. They can be identified by the family arms in the upper part, surmounted by the comtal coronet: in the first partition a crowned dog holds a dagger in his paw against a sable ground; the second partition has seven argent cottices also on a sable ground.

The Raby de La Ponte family originally came from Brittany; its ancestors include the seigneurs of Kerangrun and Kerseac'h.

On the back of the original canvas, a hand-written inscription gives the names and ages of each child: Antoine François, the youngest, was aged twenty-two months, while his older brothers, the twins Louis and Jean Baptiste Marie, were both twelve years old. Richly attired, they are shown playing with a bird, a dog and a bell.

Could Antoine Raby de La Ponte be the 'receiver general des domaines' active in the Briançon area from 1725 to 1765? And could Jean Raby be the schoolteacher in the village of Bez, mentioned briefly in the Briançon archives? The following century, however, the Raby de La Ponte seems to have settled again in Brittany, notably providing a 'député de Brest aux Etats' in 1742 and a mayor of Brest in 1785.