Portrait of the Duc de Nemours, half-length, wearing a lace collar

A comparable drawing, of the same size but executed a year before this one, is in the Louvre, L. Duclaux, Inventaire gnral des dessins, Ecole Franaise, Paris, 1975, XII, no. 8. The Louvre drawing is similarly presented in an octagon. Another drawing in the Louvre is signed in the same way as the present drawing, L. Duclaux, op. cit., no. 10. In 1651 Nanteuil executed two prints of the Duc de Nemours (1625-1659) as Archbishop of Rheims for the frontispiece of a thesis, C. Petitjean and C. Wickert, Catalogue de l'oeuvre grav de Robert Nanteuil, Paris, 1925, nos. 178-9. The present drawing shows the sitter as Duc de Nemours after he had renounced his Archbishopric and succeeded his brother to the title. It appears to be the pendant to an engraving by Nanteuil of the Duchesse de Nemours which has the same feigned octagonal frame, C. Petitjean and C. Wickert, op. cit., no. 180.
Henri II de Savoie, younger son of the Duc de Nemours, was appointed Archbishop of Rheims in 1651, without having taken holy orders. When his elder brother was killed in a duel by the Duc de Beaufort he felt obliged to renounce his benefices and enter society. In 1657 he married Marie d'Orlans-Longueville, daughter of the Duc de Longueville. This match between one of the richest heiresses in France and the bookish younger son was widely mocked. La Grande Mademoiselle, cousin of King Louis XIV, remarked 'Elle se maria et pleura beaucoup, ce que j'ai ou dire. La fivre prit M. de Nemours en sourtant de l'glise, et il n'a pas eu un moment de sant depuis...'. Nemours died two years later.