Ancient French Portrait Early 18th Century

ANCIENT FRENCH PORTRAIT EARLY 18TH CENTURY

OUDRY, JEAN BAPTISTE AND BOTTEGA
José de Rozas y Meléndez de la Cueva, 1st Earl of Castelblanco.
Oil on canvas - Approx. 1716. DIMENSIONS 158 X 120 CM

The Count of Castelbanco was born in Lima in 1665 and was a prominent figure in the exiled court of James II, former king of England and Scotland. The work of Jean Baptiste Oudry reveals the influence of the dazzling portraits of his master Largillierre. Above all, the ability to use bright colors and the skilful ability to represent clothes with a strong chromatic resolution are what characterize Oudry's unmistakable hand.

THE COUNT OF CASTELBLANCO
He was the son of Francisco de Rozas and Fernández de Santayana, Knight of the Order of Alcántara (Natural of San Bartolomé, parishioner of Santayana in the Soba Valley, Cantabria) and of Luisa Meléndez de Gama.
In 1700 James II appointed him Captain General and President of the Royal Audience of Guatemala. He had a direct relationship with the Spanish royal family through the marriage of his niece María Teresa de Vallabriga to the Infante Luis de Borbón y Farnesio
After the deposition by the English parliament in February 1689, King James II of England and his successors after him continued to create more peers and baronets, ennobling people as they pleased as they refused deposition by opponents of their autocratic rule. . These titles were recognized and used in Jacobite circles in continental Europe and were also recognized by France, Spain and the Papal States.
From the workshop of Jean Baptiste Oudry, other repilches of the painting were subsequently made as was customary in the nobility of the time.

OUDRY, JEAN BAPTISTE
Paris (France), 1686 - Beauvais (France), 1756
An artist of great fame in his time and protégé of Louis XV, from 1736 he played a brilliant career at the prestigious Beauvais tapestry factory and at the Gobelins factory. which brought him greater glories and successes, both worldly and pictorial.
Indeed, Oudry is known and prized for his abundant animal paintings, especially hunting scenes. His attentive presence of him during the hunts in the Compiègne forest to take notes from nature would mean nothing without his remarkable decorative ability and his fine sense of color.
Likewise, his landscapes and especially his portraits should be mentioned, of which the Prado preserves two interesting specimens, legacy of Fernández Durán: 'Don José de Rozas y Meléndez de la Cueva, I Count of Castelblanco' and Lady Maria Josefa Drummond , countess of Castelblanco '.
In both it turns out that his true master was Nicolás de Largilière, one of the most eminent portrait painters of the previous generation and in whose studio he spent five fruitful years. Alongside him she would carry on her colourist lesson, developing a skilful and rich color scheme that she applied to both her famous animal compositions and his portraits. Those of the Prado Museum, while not presenting typological innovations and participating in the bombastic, haughty and elegant portrait demanded by the contemporary aristocracy, amaze for the delicacy of their chromatic resolution, the exquisite transcription of the fabrics and, in the case of the Count of Castelblanco, of the 'armor (Crespo Delgado, D. in EMNP, 2006, volume V, p. 1650).