Portrait of Cardinal Guillaume Dubois

Portrait of Cardinal Guillaume Dubois by Hyacinthe Rigaud: With his luxurious, flamboyant dress—a voluminous wrap of scarlet silk topped by a short fur cape—the…

What to notice

In Portrait of Cardinal Guillaume Dubois, start with classical, portrait, figurative. Then look closely at this museum-described detail: Guillaume Dubois gained the favor of Louis XIV as tutor to his nephew, Philippe Charles, Duke of Orléans, and served as chief minister under Louis’s successors, the regent Duke of Orléans and Louis’s…

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With his luxurious, flamboyant dress—a voluminous wrap of scarlet silk topped by a short fur cape—the subject of Hyacinthe Rigaud’s portrait was clearly a man of consequence. Guillaume Dubois gained the favor of Louis XIV as tutor to his nephew, Philippe Charles, Duke of Orléans, and served as chief minister under Louis’s successors, the regent Duke of Orléans and Louis’s great-grandson, Louis XV. Dubois was appointed a Cardinal in the Catholic Church in 1721, a lofty aspiration at least partly motivated by…