Diacinto Rigaud Pittore

Lasinio Carlo (1759-1838)
Ritratti de’ pittori esistenti nella Reale Galleria di Firenze-
Diacinto Rigaud Pittore.
Nicolo’ Pagni e Giuseppe Bardi, Firenze 1789
Copper engraving
Printed in colour
Bordered with blue card, as issued
315 x 215mm
£150
A portrait of Hyacinthe Rigaud (18 July 1659 – 29 December 1743) who was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris.
He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period. For Jacques Thuillier, professor at the Collège de France. He was the most important portrait painter during the reign of King Louis XIV. His instinct for impressive poses and grand presentations precisely suited the tastes of the royal personages, ambassadors, clerics, courtiers, and financiers who sat for him. Rigaud owes his celebrity to the faithful support he received from the four generations of Bourbons whose portraits he painted. He garnered the core of his clientele among the richest circles as well as among the bourgeois, financiers, nobles, industrialists and government ministers, also courting all the major ambassadors of his time and several European monarchs. His œuvre reads as a near-complete portrait gallery of the chief movers in France from 1680 to 1740. Some of that œuvre (albeit a minority) also includes those of more humble origins – Rigaud’s friends, fellow artists or simple businessmen