Alexis Simon Belle - Portrait Of André Le Breton, King's Counselor And Elected Representative Of Paris

Oil on canvas (lined)

80.5 × 63.5 cm.
95 × 77.5 cm to frame.

Portrait of M. André Le Breton in armor by Alexis Simon Belle (1674-1734) & his workshop.

Alexis Simon Belle enjoyed a high status in France during his lifetime. An undisputed master of portraiture, he painted the greatest aristocratic and bourgeois families of his time.

André Le Breton was the son of André François Le Breton, who was a French publisher behind the Encyclopédie and Diderot and d'Alembert's Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.

André Le Breton married Elisabeth d'Houry on March 2, 1698, daughter of Laurent d'Houry, merchant bookseller and bourgeois of Paris, and Elisabeth Dubois, his wife.
Laurent d'Houry was the founder of the almanac.
It was therefore the son of André Le Breton and Elisabeth d'Houry who initiated the almanac editions.

André Le Breton was a king's advisor and elected to the Paris election.
He was a very wealthy Parisian bourgeois and closely linked to the field of French publishing in the XVIIᵉ and XVIIIᵉ centuries.