VIVIEN, Joseph
(b. 1657, Lyon, d. 1734, Bonn)

The Sculptor François Girardon

1701
Pastel on blue paper, 70 x 80 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

This portrait is one of the two admission pieces that Vivien presented in 1701 to the Académie Royal de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. Utilising either paint or pastel, candidates for portraiture were required to depict two former members occupying a high position in the hierarchy of the Académie, and were admitted or refused on the strength of these two pieces.