Artist: Jean Georges Wille (1715-1808) after Louis Tocqué (1696-1772)
Title: Abel François Poisson, Marquis de Marigny
Date: 1761
School: French XVIIIth-century
Medium: engraving
Dimensions: 490 x 340mm (support), trimmed within the plate mark
Watermark: none
Inscriptions/marks: lettered in the plate with the subject’s name and titles either side of his coat of arms <<Abel François Poisson Marquis de Marigny/Conseiller du Roy en ses Conseils Commandeur de ses Ordres/Directeur et Ordonnateur Général des Bastiments, Jardins, Arts/Academies et Manufactures Royales.>> Lettered in the plate with the designer and engraver’s names and date <<Peint par L. Tocqué……Gravé par J.G. Wille>> <<Gravé par Jean Georges Wille pour sa Réception à l’Académie 1761>> Inscription in pencil on verso <<N. 940 Le Blanc 125/V état […illegible…] pour sa reception de l’Academie>>. Inscription in ink on verso with date 1807 (see image below)
Condition: fair, minor losses at left border, fold marks bottom left and right and some staining.
Description: Portrait of Abel François Poisson, Marquis de Marigny, younger brother of Madame de Pompadour, three-quarter length wearing a fur-trimmed suit with the Order of the Saint-Esprit, right hand resting on an architectural plan showing Ange-Jacques Gabriel’s design for the Place d’Armes of the Ecole Royale Militaire. Engraved from the painting by Louis Tocqué of 1755 now at Versailles (see image below)