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The other was Mignard so illustrious by his pencil: he had an only daughter perfectly beautiful: she is repeated in several of those magnificent historical pictures which adorn the grand gallery of Versailles and its two salons, and which have had no slight share in irritating all Europe against the King, and in leaguing it still more against his person than his realm.
The German, Flemish, and Holland schools begin at 1,146, running to 1,852. There are supplements to all of the foregoing. The French school runs from 1,969 to 2,111. But the examples in this section are not inspiring, the Watteaus excepted. There is the usual Champagne, Coypel, Claude of Lorraine , Largillière, Lebrun, Van Loo, Mignard ; one of Le Nain by both brothers.
"M. Mignard does them best," said Le Poussin not long before, with lofty good nature, "though his heads are all paint, without force or character." To Mignard succeeded Rigaud as portrait painter, worthy to preserve the features of Bossuet and Fenelon.
We mounted the great steps, entered the vast vestibule and passed through the salons in which are beautiful paintings by Mignard and the two Le Bruns. As we wandered through these rooms, richly furnished and hung with old tapestries, and into the rotunda, capped by its great dome, we wondered in which of these rooms Molière's play had been given.
Instead of the natural colour of the shell, either vermilion or gold leaf was placed underneath the transparent shell; the gilt mounts became less severe, and abounded with the curled endive ornament, which afterwards became thoroughly characteristic of the fashion of the succeeding reign; and the forms of the furniture itself conformed to a taste for a more free and flowing treatment; and it should be mentioned, in justice to Lebrun, that from the time of his death and the appointment of his successor, Mignard, a distinct decline in merit can be traced.
Madame de Mortemart has caused one of the best portraits of your Majesty, done by Mignard, to be brought hither from Paris, and this magnificent personage in royal robes is placed beneath an amaranth-coloured dais, richly embroidered with gold, at the extreme end of a vast hall, which bears the name of our illustrious and well-beloved monarch. Your privileges are great, in truth, Sire.
Among the chefs d'oeuvres of art which perished in the flames were the fine works of Mignard above all, the magnificent Galerie d'Apollon the paintings of LeMoyne, Nacret, Leloir, the marines of Joseph Vernet and innumerable objects of art which had been gathered together for the embellishment of Saint Cloud by the later monarchs.
This interesting collection is composed of about three hundred paintings, amongst which we remark a Virgin in the midst of Angels, called the Virgin of Saint-Sixte, by Raphael, an admirable copy, if not a second original of the picture known under the same name in the gallery of Dresden; also three small paintings, placed next to each other, and which are incontestably by that great painter and in his best style; the Van Eyck representing the Virgin in the midst of young girls; a mass during the league, a painting which is curious on account of the subject and great personnages which it represents; a Conversion of saint Matthew, by Valentin; a saint Francis in prayer, by Hannibal Carrache; an Ecce Homo and a copy of the Holy family, by Mignard; a death of saint Francis, by Jouvenet; several marines, by Vernet; a descent from the Cross, by Lahire; the plague of Milan, by Lemonnier, of Rouen; and a great many others, which it would require too much room to mention here.
The small gallery at Versailles had been intrusted to Mignard. Lebrun withdrew to Montmorency, where he died in 1690, jealous of Mignard at the end as he had been of Lesueur at the outset of his life. Mignard became first painter to the king. He painted the ceiling of Val-de-Grace, which was celebrated by Moliere; but it was as a painter of portraits that he excelled in France.
The sight convinced me that Mignard had need of less courage than I thought, and I was within an inch of doing her the same service. It was easy enough to look only at her body, and it would have been difficult to behold anything more beautiful.
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