Portrait of Louis de Marchault, Prieur de Saint-Pierre d'Abbeville
1670
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Plate: 14 × 10 13/16 in. (35.5 × 27.4 cm) [cropped to plate mark]
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Morrison Heckscher, 2013
Accession Number
2013.965.9
Tags
Art Historical Context
This elegant engraving, *Portrait of Louis de March, Prieur de Saint d'Abbeville* by Jean Lenfant, to 1670 and captures the dignified likeness of a French ecclesiastical figure. Louis de Marchault served as prior of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre in Abbeville, a Benedictine institution in northern France. Created during the height of Louis XIV's reign, the portrait reflects the era's emphasis on hierarchy and prestige, with the inclusion of a coat of arms underscoring the subject's noble clerical status. Lenfant, a skilled French engraver active in the mid-17th century, employed the intaglio techn...