André François Alloys de Theys d’Herculais (1692–1779)

Nicolas de Largillierre was, with Hyacinthe Rigaud, the most sought-after portraitist of Louis XV’s France, and his sitters formed a who’s who of the financiers and magistrates who dominated Parisian life. This portrait of the financier André François Alloys de Theys d’Herculais dates from 1727, the decade of the painter’s greatest success, when his fluent brushwork and flattering likenesses made him the inevitable choice for the moneyed classes of the Regency and the early reign of Louis XV. Largillierre’s portraits define the confident, prosperous self-image of the French haute bourgeoisie in the years before the Revolution.