Portrait of a Man by Jacques-François Delyen

This portrait of a man in a coat is depicted in three-quarter profile facing the viewer, wearing a long powdered wig, known as a ‘Leonine’, and wrapped in a blue velvet coat lined with red or orange satin, depending on the lighting in the painting. The style of the wig is typical of the 1690s–1700s, with a low crown and slightly spread-apart sideburns.

This painting, executed around 1690, is a typical example of portraiture at the dawn of the^18th century. The pose is highly conventional, with the bust shown in profile and the face in three-quarter view, very similar to the many portraits of gentlemen painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nicolas de Largillière, or François de Troy, who formed a ‘French triumvirate’ of portraiture in the^17th century.

Nicolas de Largillière, a painter born in Antwerp, was, moreover, very close to Hyacinthe Rigaud, with whom he shared a clientele. However, their styles differed markedly. Largillière’s style was more spirited, whilst Rigaud’s was more refined. Both men served at the Royal Academy at the same time, rising to the highest positions within that institution.

In the portrait held at the Château d’Aulteribe, the realistic details—such as the velvety texture of the moustache, the contrasts of light and shadow, the smooth finish of the painted surface and the rapport between the sitter and the viewer, unmistakably place it within the circle of Nicolas de Largillière.

The artist trained in Antwerp and then travelled to London, where he lived from 1675 to 1679, and associated in particular with Peter Lely (1618–1680), First Painter to Charles II, who entrusted him with numerous restoration commissions. In London, Largillière discovered the art of portraiture and absorbed the lessons of van Dyck. On his return to France, after 1689, he became one of the most sought-after portrait painters. His portraits are prized for their likeness and sensitivity, executed in the Flemish tradition of Rubens and van Dyck. In 1686, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He became a professor there in 1705 before serving as its director from 1736 to 1743.

However, his pupil, Jean-François Deylen (1684–1761), could also be the painter of this work. In Deylen’s work, we find the same fascination with the illusionistic rendering of materials, a taste for sinuous lines that lend dynamism to the composition, and an incomparable sense of life, which is also evident in the portrait of the sculptor Guillaume Coustou (Versailles, Palaces of Versailles and Trianon), a portrait thanks to which he was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1725. He was one of the few foreign artists whom the Academy agreed to admit into its ranks. The subtlety of the rendering of the flesh, in contrast to the brilliantly and very theatrically executed cloak, are the reasons why the portrait of Aulteribe seems likely to be his.

Dominique Brême, *The Art of the Portrait under Louis XIV*, *Dossier de l’art*, no. 37, Paris, Somogy, 1997, p. 52.

Gérard de Wallens, ‘Delyen (Jacques-François)’, in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, vol. 26, Munich, 2000.

Gerard de Wallens, ‘The Two Reception Pieces by Jacques-François Delyen (Ghent 1684 – Paris 1761). A material, historical, technical and stylistic study’, in *La Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain* (1994), Louvain-La-Neuve, 1996.