Portrait of Monsignor Charles le Goux de la Berchère

Charles le Goux de la Berchère served as Archbishop of Narbonne from 1703 until his death in 1719, making him a significant figure in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of southern France during the final years of Louis XIV's reign. The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne holds the portrait, which connects it to the region over which the archbishop presided. Bon Boullogne's engagement with ecclesiastical portraiture was consistent with the practice of a painter who received numerous church commissions throughout his career. The date of 1800 given in the Wikidata record is almost certainly an error — Boullogne died in 1717 — and the portrait almost certainly dates from the period of the sitter's archiepiscopacy, between 1703 and 1717. Formal ecclesiastical portraits of this type followed established conventions: the sitter presented in three-quarter view, in full vestments, with attributes of rank, conveying spiritual authority and social eminence simultaneously.

French ecclesiastical portraiture of this period demanded confident handling of rich liturgical textiles — purple silk, white lace, gold embroidery — alongside a psychologically convincing rendering of the sitter's face. Boullogne would have structured the work around the contrast between the elaborate material surface of the vestments and the direct gaze of the portrayed individual.