Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe
1665
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 10 9/16 × 8 3/8 in. (26.9 × 21.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Lev Tsitrin, 2000
Accession Number
2000.416.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
This exquisite engraving by Robert Nanteuil, *Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe* and dated 1665, the dignified likeness of a prominent French cleric and scholar. Hardouin de Beaumont Péréfixe served tutor to the young Louis XIV and later became Archbishop of Comminges, embodying the intellectual and religious elite of 17th-century France. Nanteuil, one of the era's foremost portrait engravers and an official artist under the Sun King, masterfully rendered Péréfixe's stern gaze and clerical attire, highlighting his authority and piety. Created during the height of Louis XIV's absolutist reign, ...
About the Artist
Robert Nanteuil · 1623–1678
Robert Nanteuil (1623-1678) was a French portrait engraver, draughtsman, and pastellist who became the preeminent portraitist to the court of Louis XIV. His technical mastery and royal patronage fundamentally transformed the status of engraving in France, elevating it from a mechanical craft to a recognized fine art. Nanteuil stands as the outstanding French portrait engraver of the seventeenth c...