Portrait of the Comte d'Angiviller

1779 · Musée National du Château, Versailles

portrait

In 1775, a former soldier and personal friend of the king, Charles-Claude de Flahaut de la Billaderie, the Comte d'Angiviller, was made the Directeur des Batiments du Roi (Director of the King's Buildings) - a kind of minister of fine arts. Through him more money was made available to commission paintings that were patriotic and didactic.

Loading map…

About the Artist

Joseph-Siffred Duplessis

1725 – 1802

Duplessis was a French painter who studied with Subleyras in Rome 1745-49. Returning to France he pursued a career as portraitist in Paris, while retaining close links to his home town of Carpentras. After 1774 Duplessis won favour at the court of the new king, Louis XVI, and painted portraits of the entire royal family, as well as of Gluck (1775, Vienna) and Benjamin Franklin (1779). While in Paris, he dispatched altar paintings to the cathedral of Carpentras, as well as decorative landscape paintings to the local hospital. He retired to Carpentras from 1792 to 1796.

View all works →