Jean Martial Frédou (1710-1795), Portrait Of A Man In Breastplate

Jean Martial Frédou (1711-1795) Portrait of a man in cuirass wearing the cross of the Knights of the Holy Spirit Oil on canvas Louis XVI frame Dimension of the work: 64.5 x 53.5 cm Dimension with the frame: 74.5 x 64.5 cm Note: Work re-lined with some usual restorations. Presumed provenance: - Charles Maurice Brozic (1880-1941), he is the grandson of the great art dealer CHARLES SEYDEMEYER. - Collection J. Matthews, New York until 2000. - Private collection Magnificent portrait of a knight in cuirass, of great finesse and delicacy on a cloudy background with a pink reflection reminiscent of the straps of the cuirass. The nobility of the model emerges by the sobriety of the portrait, a posture of 3/4, the face turned towards the spectator, a lively look accompanied by a slight smile. The light comes from the left, it lands delicately on the forehead and gives relief to the armor recalling its metallic appearance. Let's not forget that our portrayed wears a cross of the knights of the order of the Holy Spirit, which shows his noble condition. Biography: Jean Martial Frédou (1710-1795) is an important portrait painter of the 18th century who was a painter, draftsman and pastel artist. The latter will settle at the court, in Versailles, in 1752. His artistic career, of a beautiful longevity, remains poorly known because of the loss, in the 19th century, of his book of reasons which listed all of his works. Although many of the artist's works are known today only through their engravings, Jean-Martial Frédou was an eminent portraitist of the royal family in the second half of the 18th century and a precious witness to the young pretenders to the throne of France. . Very early on he worked for the royal family, in the early 1760s, at the request of the Dauphine, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, he painted eleven portraits of the Children of France (see Comte Doria, "Le portraitiste Frédou, Peintre du Cabinet du King, First painting of Monsieur, extract from the Bulletin of the Society of the History of French Art, Paris, 1950, p.15). From 1776, he was appointed First Painter to Monsieur, brother of the King and future Louis XVIII.