Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, seated in a red velvet jacket with a violin

Voiriot, born the son of a ‘sculpteur des bâtiments du Roi’, studied at the Académie de France in Rome between 1746 and 1749. On his way back to Paris he painted several portraits for the Savoy court in Turin. In 1757, Voiriot was admitted to the Academy in Paris as an ‘agrée’ and two years later became a full member. He exhibited at the Salons between 1761 and 1763.

According to a label on the reverse the present painting was once owned by the Comte de Moustier, French envoy to the United States from 1787 to 1789 and a close friend of George Washington. After the death of his wife he lived with his sister-in-law, who was an artist and painted one of the rare portraits of Washington. We are grateful to Marquis Léonel de Moustier for providing information on the painting’s provenance, and to Jean Jacques Petit who has confirmed the attribution to Voiriot on the basis of firsthand inspection.