Louis Tocqué, 'Portrait of a Young Woman', probably 1730s

The unidentified young woman in this portrait turns to look at us. Her delicate and slightly smiling face is highlighted by a gentle halo of light behind her head, while another light source comes from the left. Her youth is emphasised by her pale downy flesh tones and the bloom on her cheeks, which echoes the delicate pinks in some of the flowers with which she is garlanded. The fineness of her skin is suggested by blue areas ‘where the skin is close to the bones’, which reflects an idea that Tocqué would publicise in a lecture delivered at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture on 7 March 1750.

Tocqué uses areas of textured thick white paint, known as impasto, to heighten the brightly lit parts of the oak leaf pattern of the dress. The lady’s hands are hidden beneath the gold-edged green drapery that twirls about her and a Provins rose is pinned in her powdered hair. Roses and forget-me-nots have an obvious connection with love but they are also associated with luxury in French pictures of the first half of the eighteenth century.

The portrait was probably painted in the 1730s as the composition, hairstyle and garland relate to at least two other portraits by Tocqué of that date: the Portrait of Madame Doyen (Musée Carnavalet, Paris, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) and the Portrait of the comtesse de Brienne (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg) of 1737. The colour palette of pearly grey, blue and green also supports this dating as it reflects that of Tocqué’s teacher and future father-in-law, Nattier.

An anonymous early twentieth-century annotation in a copy of the 1910 Thirion sale catalogue for this painting says this is ‘Mlle de Coislin’ (Miss de Coislin). It has therefore been suggested that this young lady might be a member of the du Cambout family from Brittany. She could be one of the sisters of Pierre-Armand du Cambout, marquis de Coislin: Marie-Josèphe (born 1707) or Renée-Marguerite (born 1708), both of whom married in 1727. However there is no evidence to support this identification except the note in the sale catalogue and there are no known existing portraits of either Marie-Josèphe or Renée-Marguerite with which to compare our painting.