item details
Overview
Robert Nanteuil (1623 or 1630–1678) was a French portrait artist: engraver, draughtsman and pastellist to the court of Louis XIV. His crayon drawings and prints quickly earned him a reputation as the most sought-after portraitist of his time, and he was appointed designer and engraver of the cabinet of King Louis XIV. It was mainly due to his influence that the king granted the edict of 1660, by which engraving was pronounced free and distinct from the mechanical arts, and its practitioners were declared entitled to the privileges of other artists. Nanteuil's clientele included the King Sun himself, Cardinal Richelieu, Queen Christina of Sweden and many other high-ranking aristocrats and personages of note.
The plates of Nanteuil, several of them approaching lifesize scale, number about 300. In his early practice he imitated the technique of his predecessors, working with straight lines, strengthened, but not crossed, in the shadows, in the style of Claude Mellan. In other prints he applied cross-hatching like Regnesson, or stippling in the manner of Jean Boulanger; however, he gradually asserted his full individuality, modelling the faces of his portraits with the utmost precision and completeness, and employing various methods of touch for the draperies and other parts of his plates.
The last observation certainly applies to this refined and ornate portrait of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, made from the life as its inscription indicates. Mazarin was Richelieu's successor, and on his death in 1642 served as Chief Minister to Louis XVI until his own death in 1661. His pursuit of expensive wars against the Habsburgs required steep taxation, which made him a bitterly unpopular figure in mid-17th century France. The abortive Fronde uprising resulted, but it achieved no constitutional reforms, and royal absolutism was reinstalled. Mazarin was a major art collector and amassed a huge fortune by the time of his death.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Mazarin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nanteuil\
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art June 2017