(Brussels 1602–1674 Paris)
Portrait of Claude de Bullion (1569–1640),
oil on panel, 33 x 23.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Germany

We are grateful to Lorenzo Pericolo for confirming the attribution to Philippe de Champaigne after examination of the present painting in the original.

The present work is a variant study for a portrait of Claude de Bullion. It may be compared with the portrait of the same sitter in Knole House, Surrey (inv. no NT 129833.) The present picture is less extensively worked than the portrait at Knole, and shows the sitter with a more reserved, less open expression, as was in keeping with contemporary courtly notions of stoicism.

Claude de Bullion was Minster of Finance under Louis XIII, and is portrayed with the monarch and the other members of the Ordre du Saint Esprit, of which he was Chancellor, in a significant work by de Champaigne of 1634/35, The Reception of the Duke of Longueville into the Order of Saint-Esprit (293 x 400 cm, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse). Marked stylistically both by his Flemish origins, and his work in Paris, where he was a founder of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture, his practice of working out confidently and rapidly his compositions directly onto panel may be seen both in the present picture and in the Knole House version.