Nicolas de LARGILLIERRE (1656-1746) Portrait of Gaspard Charles-Guillaume de Vintimille, Bishop of Marseille Re-backed canvas 62,5 x 51,5 cm In its Louis XV carved and gilded oak frame. PROVENANCE : - Paris, Drouot, Sale, 1st December 1995, n°50, reproduced - Private collection, Paris BIBLIOGRAPHY : - Catalogue of the exhibition Largillièrre, portraitiste du XVIIIe siècle, Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1981, annexe II, P. 390 NOTE : - The painting will be included in the future catalogue raisonné of the artist being prepared by Dominique BRÊME. - Our painting was already known from a print, kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale, made by H. COUSSIN, engraver in Aix (1709-1779) (Estampas, Sortais, Da 58, t. V, see also the catalogue of the Montreal exhibition cited above). Although there are variations, particularly in the position of the hands and certain details of the costume, we can identify the model with certainty: Charles Gaspard Guillaume de Vintimille des Comtés de Marseille, bishop of Marseille. - Although neither the painting nor the engraving is dated, the date of the marriage contract between Nicolas de Largillierre and Marguerite-Elisabeth Forest, drawn up on 19 August 1699 in Paris, constitutes a terminus ante quem for the creation of our portrait. This document (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, X, 251, published as an appendix to the catalogue of the Montreal exhibition, p.390) contains an inventory of Largillierre's estate and mentions, on the back of the fourth page, a debt by "Monsieur l'Esveque de Marseille" of "deux cens quarante neuf livres x s(ols)" (249 livres et dix sols). As the painting no longer appears in the stock of works kept at that date in the artist's studio, we can legitimately assume that it had already been completed and delivered to its commissioner.