Nanteuil. Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Engraved in 1668 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
To Colbert Louis XIV was indebted for much, if not all, of the success of his enterprises during the twenty-five years succeeding the death of Cardinal Mazarin.
Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches
Of course this custom does not account for all the changes of state. When an archbishop became a cardinal for instance, the engraver made the necessary modification in the costume on the copper and provided his patron with a new set of impressions; similarly for a change in a title. In the case of Fouquet, the second of five states of his portrait was made necessary by a mistake in spelling in the dedication, the others being undoubtedly due to the touching-up of the plate on account of the great number of impressions ordered by a powerful man the circle of whose friends constituted the real court of that time. In the case of Cardinal Mazarin, politics undoubtedly played a great part in the use which was made of his portraits.
It is not generally known that Nanteuil was himself the author of most of the titles and dedications both in prose and in verse, in Latin as well as in French, which form such an attractive feature of his prints. This was to be expected of the clever versifier who had written such amusing sonnets to the royal family and the leaders of the court in connection with their sittings, and of the cheerful companion who had known so intimately the beaux-esprits whom the hospitality of Fouquet had so often convened at his château of Vaux. To the Queen, who had a complexion of marvelous whiteness, he wrote a poem thanking her for the order for her portrait, which ended with this line: “Mais prenons courage, on a peint le soleil même avec un charbon!”
Nanteuil’s original drawings in pencil, crayons, and pastels are fewer by far than those of the Clouets or the pastellists of the eighteenth century which have been preserved to us; probably not more than twenty are now to be found in public collections. To my knowledge the Louvre has two, the Museum of Rheims four, the Chartres Museum one, Florence three, Chantilly four, and Stafford House, London, six. They are supremely interesting for that simplicity and sincerity, that living truth, which make one feel as if he recognized old acquaintances. As for his engravings, there are splendid collections of them in Paris, Dresden, and Chantilly, and there doesn’t exist a private collection of any importance in the world which does not contain some of the noble work of the past-master of engraved portraiture, the painter of the most brilliant period in modern history, the genial artist who had said to his pupil: “Le temps et la peine ne font pas tant les beaux ouvrages que la bonne humeur et l’intelligence.”
REMBRANDT’S LANDSCAPE ETCHINGS
By LAURENCE BINYON