Jean-Marc Nattier

Portrait of Pierre-Victoire, Baron of Besenval

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Author: Jean-Marc Nattier

Portraiture, Painting, Oil on canvas, 80x63 cm

Origin: France, Second half of the 18th century

Pierre-Victor, baron de Besenval sat for Nattier sometime in the 1740s, when the artist was at the height of his career. Captain of the French king's Swiss Guards, Knight of the Order of St Louis, the baron is shown in armour against a battlefield, and yet in this somewhat lyrical portrait he seems very unlike a cruel military commander. The soft outlines of his face, the tender smile, reveal him to be a man of elegance and poetry, and indeed he was renowned for his memoirs and a number of famous poems.

Source of entry: State Museum Fund, 1934

Exibition: French Art: 15th - 18th centuries

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