Portrait of Charles-Léonor Aubry, Marquis de Castelnau

Nicolas de Largillière was one of Europe's premier painters of portraits, history paintings, and still lifes during the late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. Although seldom patronized by the French court of Versailles, his prodigious clientele of over fifteen hundred sitters consisted of government officials, the high clergy, the Parisian and provincial aristocracy, and the wealthiest echelons of the French middle class. The Marquis de Castelnau was a legal adviser to the French parliament, while his spouse, Catherine Coustard, depicted with their eldest son in Mia’s pendant portrait by Largillière, came from a family of prosperous cloth merchants. The naturalism of this portrait represents a departure from Largillière’s customary portrayal of robed and bewigged parliamentarians in richly furnished interior settings; rather, Castelnau sits casually posed with an open book amidst the cultivated flowers of his garden.