Portrait du marquis d’Havrincourt

This 1713 portrait of the Marquis d'Havrincourt, held at the Norton Simon Museum, belongs to one of the most important private collections of European art in the American west and documents Largillière's engagement with the military nobility of Louis XIV's twilight period. The Havrincourt family held significant military and diplomatic positions in French service, and a Largillière portrait at this date—just two years before Louis XIV's death—places the work at the close of an era in French culture. The formal requirements for a marquis portrait combined the conventions of military rank with aristocratic bearing, potentially including armour, an order of chivalry, or a general's baton. Largillière's 1713 style shows him at his most assured, able to resolve the formal demands of aristocratic portraiture with a naturalness that distinguished his work from the more rigidly formulaic approach of lesser painters.

The Norton Simon's holding of several Largillières—including this and the 1689 and 1697 portraits—provides an unusual survey of his stylistic evolution. The 1713 work shows his palette at its warmest and most luminous, his fabric handling at its most confident, and his approach to the male aristocratic portrait at its most resolved. The contrast with the 1689 portrait in the same collection demonstrates clearly the shift from Flemish darkness to French luminosity.