Friday, September 11, 2020

The brothers Rijneveld - two portraits by Louis Tocqué, 1738



Isaac van Rijneveld (1706-92) and Arnoldus van Rijneveld (1715-98) were partners in the firm of their father, a prominent Amsterdam jeweler. They traveled regularly to Paris for their work, then as now, a European center of the jeweler's trade. There they sat for Tocqué, the celebrated portrait artist who had painted their elder brother the previous year.

Isaac van Rijneveld was thirty-two when this portrait was painted.
Nine years his brother's junior, Arnoldus van Rijneveld was twenty-three when he sat for this portrait.

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Jean-Louis Tocqué (19 November 1696, Paris - 10 February 1772, Paris), French portrait painter. His father, also a painter, died when he was only thirteen and he was eventually put under the care of another artist, Jean-Marc Nattier. He studied under Nattier, as well as Nicolas Bertin and Hyacinthe Rigaud. A member of the Académie from 1731, he completed his first work for the French royal family eight years later; his state portrait of Queen Marie Leczinska, painted the following year, is considered his masterpiece. In 1757 the Czarina Elisabeth invited him to visit the Russian court, paying him generously for his work there. He then made lengthy and lucrative visits to the other northern royal courts before he returned to Paris. Having married Nattier's daughter Marie in 1747, he eventually retired, gave up painting completely, and lived the rest of his life on the fortune he had amassed during his career.


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