Portrait of Monsieur de Buissy

1780 · National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

portrait

Family tradition identifies the sitter as Pierre de Buissy (1737-1787), a noble from Picardy. He appears withdrawn and distant, a reserve appropriate to his status, and also likely a product of Duplessis's studio practice.

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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.

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