The sitter in this superb portrait is shown with the grandiloquence characteristic of the eighteenth-century French school of painting. The young nobleman has been portrayed wearing an ingeniously embellished French ceremonial armour, an azure cloak, and an abundance of cascading curls falling below his shoulders. This portrait proclaims to every onlooker that this is a superior being.
The features of the sitter’s face have been captured with great sensitivity, his confident gaze perhaps reflecting the near invincibility afforded by this steel suit. The flamboyance and penetrating sense of character, lending an air of noble expectancy to the composition, seems almost eclipsed by the artist's virtuosic handling of paint. It is easy to understand why many sitters from the upper echelons of society commissioned the artist to paint their portrait.
Such fine and ornate armour was not actually used on a battlefield - its portrayal in portraiture at this time was largely used to symbolise the subject’s wealth and status as well as a claim of succession to a chivalrous tradition. The style of hair and neckcloth help to date the portrait to the turn of the seventeenth century into the eighteenth century.
Held in an exquisite frame with foliage, acorns, and flower heads, carved in bold relief and gilded – a superb work of art in its own right.
Joseph Vivien (1657-1735) was a French painter. He left his native Lyon for Paris at the age of twenty to work in the workshop of Charles Le Brun. He made his reputation by his portraits in pastels, to which he gave a sparkle and immediacy which to that time was unrivalled. He trained as a painter in Paris in the 1670s, eventually specialising in portraiture. The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture received him in 1698.
In 1700 Vivien was appointed court painter to Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, and thereafter divided his time between Paris, Maximilian Emmanuel's courts at Brussels and Munich, and the court of Maximilian Emmanuel's brother at Bonn.
His oil paintings are rare, the most important being the allegory of the Reunion of Max-Emmanuel of Bavaria with his family. His portraits of lesser nobles and of artists are often considered his best works. He played a significant role in popularising pastel portraits and ultimately emerged as the foremost advocate of this medium in France. Furthermore, he foreshadowed the rise of the next generation's leading pastel portraitist, Maurice-Quentin de la Tour. His peers praised his refined application of colour; with one admirer even conferred upon him the designation "Van Dyck of pastel".
His work is found in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.