The Artist and his Family

portrait

Largillière's normal handling of paint is matched by a freedom and naturalness in the settings of many of his portraits, with often gracefully rustic, open-air scenery anticipatory more of Gainsborough's portraits than of any vein of later French portraiture. The Portrait of a Family has about it an informality and relaxation which the rich costume of the mother and daughter cannot disguise, unsuitable though it appears for such a deeply countrified location. The father, with his gun, dead game, and lively-eyed hound, is more suitably set.

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About the Artist

Nicolas de Largillière

1656 – 1746

Nicolas de Largillière (Largillierre) was born in Paris but passed his youth in Antwerp and, from c. 1674, spent some years in England as Lely 's assistant. He was thus almost a Flemish painter when he returned to Paris in 1682. He became a member of the Academy in 1686 and ultimately its Director. His principal rival was Rigaud, but Largillière specialized in portraits of the wealthy middle classes, leaving the aristocrats to Rigaud. There are typical examples in London (National Gallery and Wallace Collection), New York (Metropolitan Museum), and Paris (Louvre). The S. Geneviève (Paris, S. Étienne) is the only survivor of the large ex-voto type of picture that he painted for the Corporations. He also painted a few pictures of still-life.

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