Portrait of a Gentleman

Likely a minister at Louis XIV's court, the subject of this portrait was once thought to be the king's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Regardless of his identity, his likeness by the most important French portraitist of the seventeenth century captures his intelligent, perceptive personality. Champaigne is especially subtle in rendering black and neutral colors in various textures. Many of the artist's portraits of courtiers were engraved by his friend Robert Nanteuil.

First supported by Queen Marie de Medicis, Philippe de Champaigne worked for the courts of Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, and Louis XIV. Born in Brussels, he studied under the landscapist Jacques Fouquier and moved to Paris with him in 1621. Known both as a portraitist and a religious painter, Champaigne was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648.