Portrait of a gentleman, said to be the Chamberlain de Montargu, half-length, wearing a breastplate over a red velvet jacket with gold embroidered sleeves

This commanding portrait exists in another version -- of the same format and near identical dimensions -- in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (inv. no. 758), which was shown in the 1999 exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art, Dresden in the Ages of Splendor and Enlightenment: Eighteenth-century paintings from the Old Masters Picture Gallery. In the exhibition catalogue, Harold Marx discusses the identity of the sitter as described in the various catalogues of the museum's collection (for full bibliographical references see pp. 224-226). In both Friedrich Mattau's 1835 catalogue and that of Julius Hübner in 1855 (and in the all subsequent editions up to 1884), the painting was recorded as 'portrait of an unknown man'. However, in 1860, Wilhelm Schäffer wrote as if it had been definitely established that the sitter was the famous statesman and general, Camille d'Houston, Comte de Tallard (1652-1728), while, in 1887, Karl Woerman identified the subject as the Chamberlain of Montargu - an identity that, although never proven, has been accepted in Dresden ever since. Indeed, in 1928 Georges Pascal also listed the sitter as 'Le Comte de Montagu [sic]' in his standard monograph on Largillière.

Marx dates the Dresden painting to circa 1710 and a similar dating can thus be given to the present work.