VLEUGHELS, Nicolas
(b. 1668, Paris, d. 1737, Roma)

Self-Portrait

c. 1714
Pastel over black and red chalk lines on beige paper, 271 x 211 mm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

This portrait appears to have been drawn shortly after Vleughels's return to Paris from Italy where he lived from 1703 to 1713, spending the first three years in Rome then two in Venice where he met Rosalba Carriera and discovered the medium of pastels, before returning to Rome in 1709 and subsequently taking up residence in Modena in 1712-13.

This self-portrait shows the artist younger than he appears in the drawings of him done by Antoine Watteau with whom he shared lodgings from 1716 to 1718, Vleughels eventually returned to Rome, where in 1727 he was appointed director of the Académie that the French king had established there in 1666.