A spectacular piece of engraving
Artist: Jean Georges Wille (1715-1808) after Louis Tocqué (1696-1772)
Title: Louis Phelypeaux, comte de Saint-Florentin
Date: 1751
School: French XVIIIth-century, German XVIIIth-century
Medium: engraving
Dimensions: 500 x 355mm (plate), 590 x 407mm (support)
Watermark: partial Strasbourg lily? See image below
Inscriptions/marks: sitter’s name and appointments on the image lower border on either side of an armorial<<Louis Phelypeaux Comte de Saint-Florentin/Commandeur des Ordres du Roi, Ministre Secretaire d’Etat &/des Commandements de sa Majesté, Chancelier de la Reine>>, production details and dedication in the image lower border <<Peint par Louis Tocqué en 1749 et Gravé par Je. Geo. Will en 1751>> <<Massilia Civitas beneficiorum memor offerebat Anno M. DCC. LI.>>
Condition: good condition, fourth of four states printed on laid paper with 18th-century watermark and generous margins
Description: Portrait of the French statesman Louis Phélypeaux (1705-1777), comte de Saint-Florentin and future duc de La Vrillière, almost whole-length, sitting at his writing desk and looking to the front, wearing court dress, a letter in his right hand. The painted portrait and the engraving were commissioned by the aldermen of Marseilles to express their gratitude to Phélypeaux for his protection. 1300 impressions of the engraving were printed to be distributed among the office holders of the city of Marseille and associates of the subject. The engraver also sold impressions of the print. The engraving was completed in 1751, the year that Phélypeaux was appointed a Minister of State. Doria (see reference below) publishes documents that show that the inscription on the plate was updated to include the the subject’s appointment as a Minister of State after 300 impressions had already been printed. In 1763, Wille was obliged to repair the plate because it had been badly stored and a further 175 impressions were printed on grand aigle watermarked paper. The painted portrait by Louis Tocqué is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille. See image below
Reference: Charles Le Blanc, Catalogue de l’oeuvre de Jean Georges Wille, Leipzig, 1847, cat. 124. Arnauld Doria, ‘Le comte de Saint-Florentin. son peintre et son graveur’, Bulletin de la société de l’histoire de l’art français, 1932, pp. 290-331. Doria’s article publishes the contract for the engraving and other documents which relate to the printing and updating of the inscription during the first printing of the plate to record the sitter’s appointment as a Minister of State.
Provenance: Estampes MAS, Paris
