Portrait of a noblewoman in ceremonial dress with Chantilly lace mantilla

oil on oval canvas
cm.72 x 59

with frame 96 x 84

Provenance: Bourbon Castle Collection, France (Saint-Laurent-d'Agny)

This portrait of a noblewoman is in our opinion to be placed in the production of the workshop of the French painter Jean Ranc, one of the most significant portrait painters of his time and a great interpreter of the French school at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. After an apprenticeship in Montpellier in the workshop of his father Antoine, Ranc moved to Paris in 1696 to join the workshop of Hyacinthe Rigaud, later remaining there as a collaborator.

He portrays a woman of high social standing, dressed in a ceremonial brocade gown adorned with a rich white mantilla in Chantilly lace, and immortalised in a three-quarter view, looking directly at the viewer. Note the careful rendering of the facial features, the attention to the nuances of the complexion, the sharpness of the contours emphasised by the light.

We can, by way of comparison, mention the painting 'Portrait d'une grande dame', painted by Jean Ranc, and now at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Narbonne, in which we can find the same attire (see museum link: https://webmuseo.com/ws/musees-narbonne/app/collection/record/398), painted between 1700 and 1734, a time interval within which we can also easily place our canvas.

Thanks to his proximity to the great painter Rigaud, already established in the field of French portraiture, Ranc began his personal rise in Parisian high society around 1700, and made a great contribution to the emergence of the ceremonial portrait, combining the careful portrayal of physiognomy and the charm of colour, the psychology of the model and his social status, the splendour of attributes and the relaxation of the pose.

The work is presented in a very good state of preservation.

Complete with a magnificent carved and gilded wooden frame of the period.

Accompanied by expertise of authenticity (FIMA ITALIA).

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