Robert Nanteuil

Robert Nanteuil
French c. 1623–1678

Jean Nocret (after)
French c. 1615–1672

François de Vendôme, Duc de Beaufort  1649
engraving
Colin Holden Charitable Trust

Nicknamed ‘king of the markets’, François de Vendôme was a charismatic and popular public figure in the mid-17th century. Although accounts from the period describe him as a man of mediocre intelligence and unscrupulous character, public subscriptions were instituted to pay his mounting debts—the writer François de la Rochefoucaud remarking in 1672 that ‘no man with so few amiable qualities was so generally loved.’

Here, the Duke’s extravagant tendencies are conveyed through his elaborately plumed helmet and similarly flamboyant grooming and costume, as he debonairly brandishes the customary military baton of his rank.