‘La Grande Mademoiselle’ by Louis Ferdinand, her eldest brother

Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, known as the ‘Grande Mademoiselle’, was the daughter of Gaston d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIII, and Marie de Bourbon, granddaughter of King Henry IV. A first cousin of Louis XIV and a wealthy princess by virtue of her numerous titles, estates and seigneuries, she played an active role in the Fronde.

This mistake cost her the French crown. Although she was Louis XIV’s cousin, Mazarin had in fact seriously considered marrying her to the young king. Exiled to her estate at Saint-Fargeau, she was not recalled to court until 1657. In 1670, at the age of 42, she fell in love with the future Duke of Lauzun, but did not obtain Louis XIV’s permission to marry him until 1681. Shortly after their marriage, the duke grew tired of his wife and the couple separated in 1685, causing a scandal of the sort the court relished, as recounted in the writings of La Rochefoucauld, the Cardinal de Retz and Madame de Sévigné.

In this portrait, the ‘Grande Mademoiselle’ is depicted wearing a sumptuous corset encrusted with pearls, and a low neckline typical of court fashion in the 1670s, as is the ‘à la Sévigné’ hairstyle with its English-style curls, topped by a wide-brimmed hat adorned with feathers. The setting, meanwhile, is bucolic, a style in vogue amongst the Précieuses, as evidenced by her letter to Madame de Motteville dated 14 May 1660, in which she speaks of the benefits of rural repose—both elegant and literary, worthy of *L’Astrée*. This type of setting is also found in another portrait of Anne-Marie d’Orléans by Ferdinand Elle the Elder (Turin, Galleria Sabauda).

The Elle family, known as the ‘Ferdinands’, were a family of painters of Flemish origin who were active in Paris from 1601 to 1695, and then in Rennes from 1696 to 1717. Louis Elle the Elder (1612–1689) and Pierre Elle (1617–1665) also went by the name ‘Ferdinand’, as did their son and nephew, Louis Elle the Younger (1649–1717). In 1648, Louis Elle the Elder’s admission to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, as one of its founding members, marked the beginning of a brilliant period for the studio, which culminated in Louis Elle the Younger’s admission to the institution in 1681. This period came to an end with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The family’s resistance led to the exile of some of its members, whilst others, such as Louis Elle the Younger, were placed under very close police surveillance until they converted to Catholicism.

The painter’s clientele consisted of members of the court, which explains why the majority of his output comprised portraits. Some of these, with low estimates, are intended for public auction, whilst others are commissioned works, as is the case with the portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle, catalogued in 1678, of which several copies exist (Tajan auction, Drouot-Richelieu, Paris,18December 2000).

Ferdinand Elle was a contemporary of the famous Flemish painter Frans Pourbus, and, like him, continued the Flemish tradition of portraiture: his subjects, with their elegant poses, bear witness to the influence of van Dyck, another Flemish portraitist who had settled in London. Louis Ferdinand Elle shared commissions with the Beaubrun brothers for portraits of the ‘Précieux’ circle, as well as for the royal family, as evidenced by the portrait of the ‘Grande Mademoiselle’ by Henri Beaubrun, which was sold at public auction (Koller Auction, Zurich, 1999) of the ‘Grande Mademoiselle’ by Henri Beaubrun, or the portrait held at the Musée Carnavalet.

Élodie Vaysse, ‘Les Elle “Ferdinand”: Painting as a Legacy. A Parisian Studio in the Grand Siècle (1601–1717)’, thesis for the École des Chartes, 2015.