Lot 71: Portrait of a gentleman, identified as Jean-André Prosper Henri Le Page, three-quarter-length, in a green jacket and carrying a rifle, in a landscape

François-Henri Mulard Paris 1769-1850
Portrait of a gentleman, identified as Jean-André Prosper Henri Le Page, three-quarter-length, in a green jacket and carrying a rifle, in a landscape
oil on canvas
39¾ x 32 in. 101 x 81.3 cm.
inscribed 'LEPAGE ARQUEer' (on the rifle)

with Newhouse Galleries, New York.
Private collection.

THE PROPERTY OF A VIRGINIAN COLLECTOR


The sitter was the musketman of the King of France, either Louis XVIII (r. 1814-24) or Charles X (r. 1824-30), and the son of Jean Le Page, rifleman to Napoleon Bonaparte; Jean's own portrait was painted by Jean-Henri Riesener in 1809. Jean-André Prosper-Henri was born in Paris in 1792 and, together with his brother-in-law Henri, patented a design for a back-loading pistol in 1832. Le Page married Almire Gasine in 1822, and together they had three children. He died in Vichy in 1854. Mulard was one of many pupils of Jacques-Louis David, whose elegant and refined Neoclassical style is evident in this portrait, with its emphasis on linearity and highly polished surface detail.