Portrait of Pierre-Joseph Titon de Cogny, three-quarter-length, in a brown velvet jacket trimmed with silvered embroidery and a waistcoat with silver and red brocade; and Portrait of Jeanne-Cécile de Cogny, née Jeanne-Cécile Le Guay de Montgermon, three-quarter-length, in a white satin robe with gold trimming and a ruby and pearl brooch, standing by a sculpture of sphinx

Pierre-Joseph Titon (1686-1758), seigneur de Cogny, vicomte de La Forêt-Tornier, and officer of the mousquetaires gris was the second son of Louis-Maximilien Titon, procureur of the King and of the Paris Hôtel de Ville. His second wife, Jeanne-Cécile Le Guay de Montgermon is portrayed in the pendant. The latter - which has studio intervention in the preparation of the sitter's dress, but was finished by the master - is a replica of the picture, dated 1713, now in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Another, bust-length, version was sold at Drouot on 22 May 1925, lot 60, and then at the palais d'Orsay, Paris, 13 June 1978, lot 32. An autograph replica of the portrait of Pierre-Joseph Titon, with some variation in the costume and wig, is in a private collection, Buenos Aires.

The Titon family had a long association with Nicolas de Largillière. Pierre-Joseph's father Louis Maximilien, lived in a hôtel that adjoined the house of the artist. He was painted twice by the latter, once as part of his large portrait of the Marchands et écehvins de la ville de Paris of 1689 (now lost, but known through sketches in the musée Carnavalet and the Louvre and a ricordo in the Hermitage) and a second time in the Ex-voto à Sainte Geneviève today in the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Paris.

We are grateful to Dr. Dominique Brême for his assistance. He will include these pictures in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the work of Largillière.