Portrait of Nicolas Michel Cury

Nicolas Michel Cury's slight smile suggests that although he held an important position in the court of Louis XV's government, he was not entirely without humor. Leisure and entertainment were a significant part of Parisian social life, and Cury seems to have possessed the wit and quick mind essential to ensuring success in social and professional circles. Charles-Nicolas Cochin's bust-length portrait of the thirty-two-year-old royal administrator of the forestry department shows a charming member of fashionable, high society in pre-Revolutionary France.