NICOLAS DE LARGILLIERE
Paris 1656 - Paris 1746
Nicolas de Largilliere was born in Paris to a merchant father whose profession took the family overseas when Largilliere was age three. While still a child he also spent two years in London. After a half-hearted attempt at involving himself in the family business failed, Largilliere returned to Antwerp where he joined the studio of Goubeau. By age 18 Largilliere had quit Antwerp to return once again to England. There he befriended the artist Lely, who took him on as an assistant. The younger artist’s skill soon attracted the notice of Charles II, who wished to retain him in service to the crown, but the fury incited against Roman Catholics by the Rye House Plot alarmed Largilliere, and the young man return to his birth city, where the great Le Brun and Van der Meulen received him in 1682. It is therefore in Paris, not London that Largilliere must have painted his portraits of James II (who requested the painter return to England upon his accession to the throne in 1685, but whose offer was declined) the queen and the prince of Wales.
Though ostensible formed under the influence of Ruben’s palette, Larguilliere arrived in Paris armed with Flemish training in still-life and English training in portraiture. His style was bold and colorful, the artist’s early flower painting visible in the portraits on which he made his reputation. That reputation soon attracted celebrities of the day: actresses, public men and church figures (Huet, and Lambert, were amongst his most noted subjects) flocked to the studio which in turn created the career-sustaining patronage of the bourgeoisie.
In 1686 Largilliere was admitted to the French Academy; his submission painting was the marvelous portrait of Le Brun now in the Louvre. Although a success as an historical painter, (his famous Crucifixion for example, engraved by Roettiers), and occasional painter of still life, it was at portraits, and historical portraits, that Largilliere excelled. He left in London images of Pierre van der Meulen and Sybrecht, and Versailles holds countless excellent examples his talent. St. Etienne du Mont in Paris shows the artist’s strength in group portraiture, with a painting of the day’s leading officers of the municipality. Largilliere rose in the Academy, until in 1743, he was made its Director; there, Jean Baptiste Oudry was his most distinguished pupil, but Largilleire’s influence is seen in Nattier, and Tocqué, and arguably exchanged with Rigaud, as well.
Excellent examples of Largilliere’s work may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery and the Wallace Collection, London, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, Washington DC, the Louvre, and at Versailles.
