Posted Jan 21, 2022, 9:15 AMUpdated on Jan 21, 2022 at 9:18 am
Nicolas de Largillière (1656-1746) is a French painter who had enormous success during his lifetime thanks to his portraits, in which he knew how to handle flattery with virtuosity. Its production, in sixty years of career, will have been substantial. In his time, 1,500 works are mentioned. Perhaps the pinnacle of his art is “La Belle Strasbourgeoise”, a painting from 1703 in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg, in which a sumptuously dressed woman with a mysterious smile gazes at the viewer.
Largillière seemed sensitive to the lure of profit to the point of providing the same work twice – a practice that is common among the old masters. Another version of the same painting was auctioned on September 15, 2020 in Paris for 1.5 million euros, the record price for the artist. Against all odds, it was bought by the Suning Art Museum in Shanghai, a private museum which is also mainly devoted to Chinese inks.
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