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Lot Essay
Much ink has been expended by scholars in trying to distinguish the hands of the artistic collective that were the Le Nain Brothers. Born in Laon in Picardy, Antoine Le Nain (c.1598-1648), Louis Le Nain (c1600/5-1648) and Matthieu Le Nain (c.1607-1677) had a jointly-held workshop in Paris. In the question of assigning individual authorship to their paintings there is no clear resolution. Unmarried and childless, the Le Nain brothers lived together and shared a studio their entire lives, conditions which encouraged their tightly interwoven manner of production. As the studio was headed by Antoine, he is presumed to have been the eldest. The brothers produced altarpieces and religious paintings; small, multi-figural pictures on copper or wood of musicians or children; portraits – almost all of which are unidentified, apart from the present portrait – and the peasant scenes for which the brothers are today best known and revered. They achieved considerable success, received commissions from the Church and Crown and were founding members of the Académie Royale, established just two months before the near simultaneous deaths of Antoine and Louis, presumably in the same epidemic. Some of their paintings – including the present lot – are signed, but when they are, it is always simply ‘Le Nain’. As the connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette noted in 1750, the brothers 'were so perfectly harmonized in their work that it is almost impossible to distinguish what each had done in the same painting, as they worked together, and rarely released a painting from the studio where [each] had not put their hand.'
The present painting is unique among the surviving works of the Le Nain brothers: it is their only signed and dated portrait to have come down to us, and the only portrait with a securely identified sitter. As such, 'it serves as a cornerstone for future research on this least-understood aspect of their production' (Dickerson and Bell, 2016, p. 228). This is a particular irony, as noted by Colin Bailey, since 'during their lifetimes, the Le Nain were known primarily as portraitists – an aspect of their oeuvre that has survived hardly at all…' (Dickerson and Bell, 2016, p. xiv). Documents provide an idea of how much the Le Nain relied on portraiture for their livelihood. Nearly 100 portraits – in various techniques and formats, male and female, bust and full-length – were inventoried in Mathieu’s estate after his death, and all are likely to have been painted by him or his brothers. Several prestigious commissions are recorded: Antoine was chosen in 1632 to paint a group portrait of the échevins of Paris (lost), as well as their corresponding individual portraits. Mathieu is recorded as having painted a portrait of Anne of Austria and another of Cardinal Mazarin (both lost). In the novel Les galanteries de la cour (1644) by Louis Moreau du Bail – a popular roman à clef – the Brothers Le Nain appear under the lightest of disguises: the character representing Antoine is described as 'the most successful Painter in Paris for the true likeness of his portraits, done from life,' while Mathieu is said to 'cede nothing to his brothers, as he produces wonders; he knows perfectly how to make his portraits resemble the faces he paints…'. In Claude Leleu’s Histoire de Laon, a manuscript account written before the author’s death in 1726, Antoine is said to have 'excelled at miniatures and small portraits” while Louis “succeeded at half-length portraits, as well as portraits of heads.'
Yet apart from the present painting, no conventional portrait by the brothers is today identified (although x-rays of a number of their genre scenes reveal that the brothers frequently painted over previously used canvases which bare traces of portraits beneath). The famous Three Men and a Boy in the National Gallery, London (fig. 1), is certainly a half-length triple portrait – probably depicting the brothers themselves – but it is unsigned and unfinished. The Painter’s Studio (Bute Collection, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute), is a tiny, beautiful genre scene that likely depicts the three brothers in their workshop, along with their two older brothers, Isaac II and Nicolas, standing behind them and, resting on the floor beside the easel, a portrait of their deceased father. Beyond these two atypical works, a number of their genre scenes of peasants, musicians and guardsmen include figures rendered with such specificity that we might presume they represent informal portrayals of actual sitters.
The present portrait – signed and dated ‘Lenain-fecit-1644’ – has been traditionally identified as of Jean-Arnaud de Peyrer, comte de Tréville (1598-1672). Tréville, also called the marquis de Troisvilles, was captain of the Mousquetaires de la Gardes, or royal musketeers, the company entrusted with protecting the king and his properties. When Louis XIII armed the company with muskets in 1622 they became known as ‘The Musketeers.’ Born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie in southwestern France to a prominent and well-to-do family, Tréville entered the army as a cadet in 1616 and, by 1625, had joined the Mousquetaires, being promoted to lieutenant in 1632 and to their captain two years later.
Tréville’s life was as swashbuckling as that of the character named after him in Alexandre Dumas’s famous adventure novel The Three Musketeers (1844). He fought valiantly in the Battle of La Rochelle in 1629 and would later be appointed one of the king’s Gentlemen of the Bedchamber. Having crossed Cardinal Richelieu by aligning himself with the queen, Anne of Austria – the cardinal’s nemesis – Tréville became embroiled in a failed plot to overthrow Richelieu, and was sent into exile in December 1642. However, luck was on his side: Richelieu died almost immediately afterward; Louis XIII reprieved Tréville from exile just before his own death in May 1643; and Anne of Austria – now regent for the young Louis XIV – rewarded Tréville for his loyalty by making him a count. The Le Nain’s grand, full-length portrait of him dates from the following year and may have been made to commemorate the sitter’s new title. As Dickerson and Bell observed, he does not wear the emblematic musketeer’s cross on his armor nor carry a musket in the portrait, likely because he had had to resign the company in the wake of his downfall in 1642. It is likely that Tréville turned to the Le Nain to paint his portrait through the brothers’ associations with Anne of Austria, whose own portrait had been painted by Mathieu. Although the present painting does not appear in the posthumous inventory of Tréville’s widow, Anne de Guillon, its first documented owner was Tréville’s direct descendant, the comtesse de Mont-Réal, providing strong support for its traditional identification, which has been universally accepted.
This ambitious, grand-scale portrait perfectly embodies its subject. Tréville confronts the viewer with a direct, self-confident gaze and a swaggering, hand-on-hip pose, befitting his station and military success. He appears on a grand marble balcony and dominates the setting. Every inch of the painting displays the Le Nains' mastery of elaborate textures and patterns – from the cut velvet of a great swath of drapery that frames Tréville’s imposing form, the intricate lace that adorns his boots and collar, the leatherwork of his boots and gloves, and the tooled metalwork of the armor, to the fine rendering of his hair and beard, the shimmer of his pearl earring and the carefully observed grain of his wooden walking stick with its silver handle and tip.
In most of the early literature, the painting is attributed to Antoine Le Nain, a specific attribution that Dickerson and Bell maintain, if tentatively, citing the similarity in the execution of Tréville’s intricate lacework and tightly rendered embroidery to that in other works generally ascribed to Antoine, notably The Musical Reunion (fig. 2 1642; Louvre) and An Interior (1647; Louvre). However, as they acknowledge, the large scale of the painting is atypical of works ascribed to Antoine. Furthermore, the date of the painting indicates that any – or all – of the brothers could have participated in its execution.
The present painting is unique among the surviving works of the Le Nain brothers: it is their only signed and dated portrait to have come down to us, and the only portrait with a securely identified sitter. As such, 'it serves as a cornerstone for future research on this least-understood aspect of their production' (Dickerson and Bell, 2016, p. 228). This is a particular irony, as noted by Colin Bailey, since 'during their lifetimes, the Le Nain were known primarily as portraitists – an aspect of their oeuvre that has survived hardly at all…' (Dickerson and Bell, 2016, p. xiv). Documents provide an idea of how much the Le Nain relied on portraiture for their livelihood. Nearly 100 portraits – in various techniques and formats, male and female, bust and full-length – were inventoried in Mathieu’s estate after his death, and all are likely to have been painted by him or his brothers. Several prestigious commissions are recorded: Antoine was chosen in 1632 to paint a group portrait of the échevins of Paris (lost), as well as their corresponding individual portraits. Mathieu is recorded as having painted a portrait of Anne of Austria and another of Cardinal Mazarin (both lost). In the novel Les galanteries de la cour (1644) by Louis Moreau du Bail – a popular roman à clef – the Brothers Le Nain appear under the lightest of disguises: the character representing Antoine is described as 'the most successful Painter in Paris for the true likeness of his portraits, done from life,' while Mathieu is said to 'cede nothing to his brothers, as he produces wonders; he knows perfectly how to make his portraits resemble the faces he paints…'. In Claude Leleu’s Histoire de Laon, a manuscript account written before the author’s death in 1726, Antoine is said to have 'excelled at miniatures and small portraits” while Louis “succeeded at half-length portraits, as well as portraits of heads.'
Yet apart from the present painting, no conventional portrait by the brothers is today identified (although x-rays of a number of their genre scenes reveal that the brothers frequently painted over previously used canvases which bare traces of portraits beneath). The famous Three Men and a Boy in the National Gallery, London (fig. 1), is certainly a half-length triple portrait – probably depicting the brothers themselves – but it is unsigned and unfinished. The Painter’s Studio (Bute Collection, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute), is a tiny, beautiful genre scene that likely depicts the three brothers in their workshop, along with their two older brothers, Isaac II and Nicolas, standing behind them and, resting on the floor beside the easel, a portrait of their deceased father. Beyond these two atypical works, a number of their genre scenes of peasants, musicians and guardsmen include figures rendered with such specificity that we might presume they represent informal portrayals of actual sitters.
The present portrait – signed and dated ‘Lenain-fecit-1644’ – has been traditionally identified as of Jean-Arnaud de Peyrer, comte de Tréville (1598-1672). Tréville, also called the marquis de Troisvilles, was captain of the Mousquetaires de la Gardes, or royal musketeers, the company entrusted with protecting the king and his properties. When Louis XIII armed the company with muskets in 1622 they became known as ‘The Musketeers.’ Born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie in southwestern France to a prominent and well-to-do family, Tréville entered the army as a cadet in 1616 and, by 1625, had joined the Mousquetaires, being promoted to lieutenant in 1632 and to their captain two years later.
Tréville’s life was as swashbuckling as that of the character named after him in Alexandre Dumas’s famous adventure novel The Three Musketeers (1844). He fought valiantly in the Battle of La Rochelle in 1629 and would later be appointed one of the king’s Gentlemen of the Bedchamber. Having crossed Cardinal Richelieu by aligning himself with the queen, Anne of Austria – the cardinal’s nemesis – Tréville became embroiled in a failed plot to overthrow Richelieu, and was sent into exile in December 1642. However, luck was on his side: Richelieu died almost immediately afterward; Louis XIII reprieved Tréville from exile just before his own death in May 1643; and Anne of Austria – now regent for the young Louis XIV – rewarded Tréville for his loyalty by making him a count. The Le Nain’s grand, full-length portrait of him dates from the following year and may have been made to commemorate the sitter’s new title. As Dickerson and Bell observed, he does not wear the emblematic musketeer’s cross on his armor nor carry a musket in the portrait, likely because he had had to resign the company in the wake of his downfall in 1642. It is likely that Tréville turned to the Le Nain to paint his portrait through the brothers’ associations with Anne of Austria, whose own portrait had been painted by Mathieu. Although the present painting does not appear in the posthumous inventory of Tréville’s widow, Anne de Guillon, its first documented owner was Tréville’s direct descendant, the comtesse de Mont-Réal, providing strong support for its traditional identification, which has been universally accepted.
This ambitious, grand-scale portrait perfectly embodies its subject. Tréville confronts the viewer with a direct, self-confident gaze and a swaggering, hand-on-hip pose, befitting his station and military success. He appears on a grand marble balcony and dominates the setting. Every inch of the painting displays the Le Nains' mastery of elaborate textures and patterns – from the cut velvet of a great swath of drapery that frames Tréville’s imposing form, the intricate lace that adorns his boots and collar, the leatherwork of his boots and gloves, and the tooled metalwork of the armor, to the fine rendering of his hair and beard, the shimmer of his pearl earring and the carefully observed grain of his wooden walking stick with its silver handle and tip.
In most of the early literature, the painting is attributed to Antoine Le Nain, a specific attribution that Dickerson and Bell maintain, if tentatively, citing the similarity in the execution of Tréville’s intricate lacework and tightly rendered embroidery to that in other works generally ascribed to Antoine, notably The Musical Reunion (fig. 2 1642; Louvre) and An Interior (1647; Louvre). However, as they acknowledge, the large scale of the painting is atypical of works ascribed to Antoine. Furthermore, the date of the painting indicates that any – or all – of the brothers could have participated in its execution.