Biography

Origins of a formation

Hiacint Francesc Honorat Maties Father-Martir Andreu Joan Rigau , such as it appears on its birth certificate as a Catalan, is born little from time before the annexation of the province of Roussillon to France, thanks to the Treaty of the Pyrenees, on November 7th of the same year 1659. Its grandfather, Honorat Rigau, officiated already as painter in Catalonia about 1570. As for his/her own father, Matias, it is described as tailor ( sastre as a Catalan) but also painter . His/her mother, Maria Serra, who largely seems to have supported her gifts, then pushes it to leave the family cocoon street of the Fire close to the Cathedral Saint-Jean-Baptist of Perpignan in order to continue her formation in Montpellier, in the workshop of the painter Paul Pezet, since 1671. In Montpellier, Rigaud is familiarized with the painters of the North whose these Masters collect already works: Antoine Van Dyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, Titien and other Sebastien Bumblebee… Later, in Paris, the painter will make a very rich personal collection, will copy many tables of these artists and will be posed as a true international expert when they acts, for the Louis XIV of France or the nobility, to acquire works of art on the European market.

Before arriving at Lyon about 1677, Rigaud will have time to bind close links with the family of Troy of which the brothers Jean (1638-1691) and especially François de Troy will be able to advise it. In the capital of Gaules, Rigaud looks further into its knowledge near the merchants of silk trade and other tradesmen who quickly become his best customers. It weaves there various solids friendships with a pleiad of talented engravers whose Girard Audran and Drevet will remain, later, the best representatives, collaborators and invaluable diffusers of his Article.

Paris

It is in 1681 that the artist arrives in the capital, in company of sound brother. He optient in 1682 the Prix of Rome thanks to a Caïn building the town of Enoch (lost); subject treated the previous year by the inhabitant of Aix of adoption, Raymond Lafage, met in Provence. Charles Le Brun, first painter of the king, of which nothing proves that Rigaud followed the courses but which admires already the productions of the young Catalan, spontaneously dissuades it to make the Roman initiatory voyage that its price offered to him, in order to devote itself to the Portrait, kind more lucrative than the painting of history, more honorary. Stone has a presentiment of success then and is thrown then in the market which it quickly will revolutionize. Its fortunate customers, artists and middle-class men appreciate immediately the truth of returned features which the artist proposes, kind of “instantaneous photography” of the faces, too often idealized up to now. With this confusing resemblance, Rigaud quickly combines a science of textures and colors, so much so that many will be those which will acknowledge duty touch the fabric to realize that the silk trade and others draped real but were not simply painted!

“ the truth shone in all that it did . Rigaud could give to its portraits a so perfect resemblance, that further one saw them, one entered so to speak in conversation with the people whom they represented ” will acknowledge us later of Argenville, one of the customers of the painter.

Velvet, satins, taffeta, laces, wigs and especially the hands… all seemed admirable, so much so that many were its contemporaries with the glorifier:

“ Stone not less erudite in the art of draperies,/the clothes that with your choice of and you paint vary,/One is mistaken with the fabric, and one grows that Gautier/Te provides it brilliant to leaving the trade ” extasiait the abbot of Villard…

Customers

The accounts books of the artist, held scrupulously all with length that its famous workshop joining together as many artists of reputation such Joseph Parrocel lasted, his/her brother Gaspard or Blin of Fontenay, specialized in the scenes of battles or the flowers, attest of its immense production and this, until the twilight of its life. Inlassablement and victim of its success, Rigaud answers the unceasingly increasing request.

At the beginning of his establishment, Hyacinthe Rigaud sees passing in his workshop, soon fixed place of the Victories at Paris, a multitude of customers, simple fish merchant to noble more in sight. It paints also several high figures of world of art such sculptors Desjardins (an old friend it will deliver three successive portraits), Girardon, Coysevox, the painters Joseph Parrocel (two effigies), the Pit, Mignard, the architects Of Coat, Hardouin-Mansart, Gabriel… the poets are not remains about it with in particular the Fountain or Boileau. The prelates also hustle themselves. The cardinal of Fleury will solicit by twice Rigaud, Bossuet also, the most influential archbishops and bishops will fight and spend insane sums. But it is the production, in 1688 of the portrait (lost) of Mister, brother of the king, which will open in Rigaud the doors court. All the entourage of the duke of Orleans then precipitates before Louis XIV itself, intrigued, does not order its first official portrait of the hand of the Catalan, in the years 1694. Will come the future Régent, then duke of Chartres, his mother, the princess Palatine, the Grand Dolphin, wire of the king, the duke of Burgundy, his brother, the future king d' Espagne… But it is mainly in 1701, whereas he is requested once more by Louis XIV that Rigaud reaches the top of its glory. The portrait which it carries out completes to make of him, the portraitist more courted Europe. All the ministers, almost without exception, ruent themselves in its workshop: the cardinal Dubois, the counts de Pontchartrain, majority of the family members Colbert, the Noailles…

When Louis XIV dies, in 1715, Rigaud fixes the features of new the monarch, and will deliver two other portraits of them, in 1721 and 1735, all more sumptuous the ones than the others. Ambassadors, princes German, English, Swedish, Italian open their purses to equalize French opulence, so much so that no moved back corner of Europe could from now on be unaware of the name of Stone.

When a portrait was judged too expensive to reproduce, one ordered with the engravers of interpretations quite as splendid. Drevet in particular, father and wire were made a glory bear the name of Stone beyond the rhine.

The complete catalog of the work of the Master appears in the truth instantaneous perfect of all the European company of its time. No social class seemed to escape to him.

Official recognition

Extremely of his tireless work, Hyacinthe Rigaud also reached the royal Académie of painting and of sculpture, required passage to be able to live officially of its Article This was not done without clashes. One reminded it several times the order, one dispatched at his place ushers so that it returns its pieces of reception and that it regularizes an irrefutable fact. Counsel by the institution as of 1685, it was to carry out the portraits of Desjardins and the honorary adviser the Vault-Bessé. In 1700, after moults delays, Rigaud offers finally the first effigy, but in double specimen, the second model being for a long time deceased. One retains some to do it painter of portraits and one accepts his Saint-Andrew for the field of the history, the January 2nd of the same year. With two Crucifixions (museum Stone of Perpignan), a Nativity ( modello with the museum of the Art schools of Rennes) and splendid a Presentation with the Temple (Museum of Louvre), the artist proved in the world that it could hold head with largest. It exposes then to only the Salon in which it took part, that of 1704, as an assistant of professor and fulfills with little assiduity its functions professor this time (September 27th 1710) then vice-chancellor (November 21st 1733) before resigning in 1735, overloaded work and undoubtedly already suffering.

The man

Stammerer, but liking and of good company, Hyacinthe Rigaud left us nearly five self-portrait official. He was man of taste, extremely pious (and even haunted by the idea of its safety), collector and skilful businessman. He had little enemy and even its large “rival”, Largillierre, were actually a true friend, often sharing with him the same models. Stone married in 1710 Elisabeth de Gouy, a young widow with a child of an usher to the Grand the Council, with which it did not have a descent. It is undoubtedly for that it was concerned, throughout the nine wills written during its life, to envisage the division of its succession between its many neuveux and nieces, resulting from sound brother or its young sister, Claire Marie Madeleine Géronime, wife of a royal baillif of Perpignan. Moreover, in 1695, the artist had remade the voyage in Roussillon in order to receive its birthplace of the noble letters, confirmed later by Louis XV and haloed by obtaining the cross of the Ordre of Saint-Michel in 1727… It is in 1695 precisely that it benefitted from his stay to paint his sister (opposite) but more especially her mother: “ to mark with his/her mother her recognition subsidiary of the obligations that it had to him for all the care which she had taken of its education, its piety and its tenderness for her determined, at the end of 1695, to leave all its occupations to make the voyage in Roussillon, and to return to him to her what it owed him. One of its principal sights, by making this voyage, was to paint it and gain with him the image of that which had given him the day. Its intention was to make carry out this marble portrait, this is why it painted it in three various sights: one of face, the other of profile, and the third with three quarter, so that Mr. Coysevox, his friend, one of the most skilful sculptors of France, which was to make out of marble this portrait, had more facility to improve it. This work makes the most invaluable ornament of the cabinet of this wire recognizing, and must there remain until time that it intended to devote it to the Academy of painting; and not being wanted to hold with this only mark of love for it, it made it engrave then by the sior Drevet, one of the most skilful copper plate engravers of this time, in order to multiply and to reproduce in some way with the posterity that which put it at the world . ”

This account, extract of a proper biography written by Stone in 1716 on the initiative of his/her friend Henri Van Hulst, as well attests its bonds with the sculptor as of its maternal attachment. In its first will dated from the May 30th 1707, the artist envisages already that the splendid marble is bequeathed to the Grand Dolphin (it will be bequeathed thereafter to the Academy from where its presence with the Louvre) and the portrait appearing the two profiles of Maria Serra (orthography legitimately Catalan), given the oldest son of sound brother Gaspard: Hyacinthe.

“ Ledit sior testator begs Monseigneur the Dolphin to find good that it luy presents the white marble bust of damoiselle Marie Serre, his/her mother, made by Mr. Coisvox with the quaisne or the scabellon on which it will be found at the day of the death of the known as sior testator who hopes for kindness of Monseigneur that it will grant to this bust a place in the gallery of her castle of Meudon, or in that of Versailles. The aforementioned sior testator wishing to inspire the same respect and the veneration which it carries to stable-lad. Damoiselle Marie tightens her Mother with Hyacinthe Rigaud his nephew, it luy gives, bequeaths and substitutes the portrait of stable-lad. Damoiselle his/her mother in three faces with the load that it will preserve it religieusement . ” Actually, Rigaud will paint a second painting (changing to three attitudes presented to Coysevox); oval from now on preserved in private collection, copied by Géricault (museum of Dijon) and object of the beautiful engraving of Drevet.

Epilog

To its death, the major part of its bottom of drawings, prints and tables returned to the one of its godsons, the painter Collin of Vermont, which made, in 1760, a particularly remarkable praise of its godfather:

“ Mr Rigaud was one of these rare men that the sky gives birth to be used of guide and model with the artists; it accepted while being born a strong temperament adzes to support tirednesses long and constant study of the nature, which it was made all its life an inviolable law imitate; but if it has scu to return it perfectly, it was not by servilely copying it in its works and such as it is often presented, but by an exquisite choice that it made some; he knew the long distance that there is the beautiful one with the excellent one; one saw it more once to erase the things which had cost him several workdays and which liked most skilful, to be satisfied itself and arrive to this excellent that he had proposed; a higher genius born for first order painting, like Raphaël, Titien, Rubens, Vandick and others .

Mr Rigaud had been intended for the history and it would undoubtedly have arrived there at the more high degree; it is easy to judge some by the fast progress which it made in its studies with the Royal Academy; it deferred of them all the prices with much distinction by a table of the crucifixion, which I have between the hands, on which it was accepted as historian, no matter what it is only with half made up; and especially by the invaluable table of the presentation which it finished towards the end of its life; but the talent and the great reputation which it had as of its youth by the perfect one and beautiful resemblance in the portraits, increasing the every day in Paris, it was soon overloaded occupations and was obliged to give up the history, without to have been able to take it again that to make by interval the last table from which I come to speak . It took for its model in the portrait famous Vandick whose beautiful brush always charmed it and in the first which it made one sees there this beautiful execution and this freshness of complexion, which come only from one free and easy brush; it stuck in following carefully finishing all that it painted; but its work does not feel the sorrow and, though it turns all with love, a beautiful way of painting and an easy manner are always seen there; it joined to the pleasant naivety and the beautiful simplicity of Vandick a nobility in its attitudes and a contrast gracious which were to him particular .

It so to speak amplified and extended draperies of this famous painter and spread in his compositions this size and this magnificence which characterize the majesty of the kings and the dignity of large of which he was the painter by predilection; nobody pushed further than him it imitation from nature in the local color and the key of the fabrics, particularly of velvets; nobody knew to more noblement throw draperies noblement and of a more beautiful choice.

It found the first art to make them appear of a piece by the connection of the folds, having noticed even in the large Masters of draperies which seemed several parts by this defect of connection that engraving makes better feel that the table, because it is stripped of color .

He was the enemy of this simplicity poor and petty which is not that of Vandick and jusques to the least things he ennoblissait them and grace gave them. It carried to the more high degree this so considerable part in the tables where if few painters excel and where the experts fix initially their attention, I want to say the hands which it painted of a beauty and a perfectly correct .

Its works have that of remarkable which they like also by far like close, because the beautiful one finished does not remove the effect of it. So in some ones of his last portraits one does not find all firmness in the brush and the truth of the colors in the complexions which one always saw in his other works, it is that at the end the eyes weakened; eh! which is the painter with four twenties and so much of years which was maintained more in the correction and the purity of the drawing? For draperies, the continual experiment and reflections made him compose even more learnedly and of a greater taste than the first and I dare to advance that in this part of Painting (I entens compared to the portraits) it exceeded all those which preceded it. It is seen that he complained in his works; as it had the large heart and the raised feelings, and that all its person and her manners had an air of distinction, in the same way its tables carry a character of nobility which is clean for them .

a so extraordinary merit indisputably did of Mr Rigaud one of the great painters than we had and its personal qualities made it cherish of all the decent people. It had the admirable heart, it was tender husband, friend sincere, useful, essential, of a not very common generosity, an exemplary piety, a pleasant and instructive conversation; it gained with being known and, more it was practiced, more one found his trade pleasant; finally, a man who had known to join to if high degree of perfection in his art a probity if recognized, deserved well during his life the distinctions and the honors whose Court and all Europe filled it and, after his death, the regrets of all the virtuous people and the veneration which the artists will always have for his memory . ”

The inventory after death

Recently found, this complete inventory enables us from now on to enter the intimacy of the painter, to admire fortune, its pieces of furniture and to include/understand how its house went. The inventory having been vandalisé on its page of initial publication, it will be very soon again on line so that everyone can consult it freely. Besides I will not fail to quote some of broad extracts since it belongs to the public domain (it is microfilmed with the public records of Paris). The reasoned catalog of the painter is also completed and will be published soon.

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