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Nicolas de Largillierre
1656-1746
Portrait of Marguerite de Sève, Wife
of Barthélemy-Jean-Claude Pupil
1729
Oil on canvas
54-1/2 x 41-7/8 in.
Largillierre, who enjoyed a long and successful career as a portraitist, was sought out early in the eighteenth century by important new clients from the provinces of France. One of them was B.-Jean-Claude Pupil, who received two judicial appointments in Lyon after his marriage in 1722 to Marguerite de Sève, the subject of the companion portrait. His wife wears a costume with an embossed and jeweled bodice that looks made of metal but may be silk mounted on molded buckram, a stiff material. The music she touches with her left hand and the words underneath it are for a drinking song of the kind that sophisticated women sang at an evening gathering at home.