# Portrait of Edouard Colbert, Marquis de Villacerf [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MIGNARD, Pierre]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, oval, 83 x 66 cm ## Commentary The Mignard shows originality in portraiture. This art had almost ceased to exist in its own right, owing to the importance which the Academy attached to history painting. Mignard had the skill to give life to this ailing tradition, and his portraits in this vein, such as the present painting, are vastly superior to similar productions by his rivals, such as Claude Lefebvre, who used a more or less Flemish formula deriving ultimately from van Dyck. Edouard Colbert, Marquis de Villacerf \(1628-1699\) was a high ranking official in the government of Louis XIV. The nephew of the King's famous Finance Minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, he was appointed Superintendent of Buildings, Arts and Manufactures in 1691. This post charged him - among others - the overseeing of the French Royal academies of painting, sculpture, and architecture. ## Related artworks - [Clio]() - [Equestrian Portrait of Louis XIV]() - [Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles]() - [God the Father]() - [Magnanimity of Alexander the Great]() - [Mystic Marriage of St Catherine]() - [Perseus and Andromeda]() - [Portrait of Françoise-Marguerite, Countess of Grignan]() - [Portrait of Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans]() - [Self-Portrait]() - [The Heavenly Glory]() - [The Marquise de Seignelay and Two of her Children]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()