Studio of Hyacinthe Rigaud, 'Cardinal Fleury', perhaps 1734 or 1735

This is a portrait of the powerful Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury (1653–1743) who became, in effect, Prime Minister of France during the reign of King Louis XV. It is a studio copy based on an earlier 1728 portrait by Rigaud. Fleury is shown seated facing us and directly meeting our gaze with a slight smile. He wears crimson fur-lined cardinal’s robes – a glimpse of his elaborate lace sleeve appears from beneath his ivory fur. He is seated against a plain greyish background decorated only with a length of red velvet fabric, the sweep of which echoes the diagonal lines of the cardinal’s collars and shoulder.

The first recorded payment in Rigaud’s account books for a portrait of André-Hercule de Fleury was in 1706 when he was bishop of Fréjus, in south-eastern France. Rigaud’s accounts next record money received for a portrait of Fleury in 1728. By this time Fleury had resigned his bishopric (in 1715) to become tutor to the dauphin (the heir to the French throne), the future Louis XV. In June 1726 Fleury effectively became the Prime Minister of France, a role in which he remained until his death, and in September 1726 he was made a cardinal. He was responsible for the sacking in 1726 and exile of Antoine Paris, depicted in another portrait by Rigaud in the National Gallery’s collection.

The portrait of Fleury for which Rigaud was paid in 1728 was a seated three-quarter-length of which the best version (although a copy painted by Rigaud’s studio), is at Goodwood House, Sussex. The youthful look of the cardinal in the 1728 portrait, when he was actually 75, may have resulted from it being based on the now-lost portrait for which payment was recorded in 1706 when Fleury was 52.

Our painting is one of the numerous half-length copies of the 1728 portrait. Rigaud’s account book records ten copies made in 1728, as well as one in 1729, one in 1734 and two in 1735, but very many other copies exist.

It is likely that the first owner of our painting was Henry Fox (1705–1774), a political supporter of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745). Fox was intermittently in Paris in the years 1732–5. Rigaud made several copies of the 1728 portrait for James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave (1715–1763), who was a political appointee of Walpole, as well as a friend of Fox. It is therefore possible that the National Gallery’s painting is one of the copies made for Waldegrave in the years 1734–5.