Jean Ranc
Encyclopedia
Jean Ranc was a French painter, mainly active in portraiture. He trained under his father Antoine Ranc
and his father's former student Hyacinthe Rigaud
and served in the courts of both Louis XV of France
and (from 1723 onwards) Philip V of Spain
.
and Françoise de Boyere among others. In this era, every painter - including Antoine - battled to obtain lucrative municipal contracts to decorate public buildings. Antoine was a man of taste, forming a personal collection of paintings by the European masters and received many young artists into his studio, including Hyacinthe Rigaud from 1671. The connections between Rigaud and the Ranc family were to prove long and fruitful, even if Rigaud's glory somewhat eclipsed the efforts of that family.
Jean soon moved to Paris, in 1696, where he became the devoted student of his Catalan compatriot and friend Rigaud, working in his studio. His art still showed certain influence from his elder compatriot. He registered the Académie on 30 December 1700, being received into it on 28 July 1703 as a portraitist for his portrait of Nicolas Van Plattenberg, known as "Platte-Montagne" (1631–1706) and that of François Verdier (1651–1730). Finally, on 5 November 1707, he gained the much-coveted title of a history painter thanks to a lost Bearing the cross.
Jean Ranc then became established as a portraitist to the Parisian bourgeoisie and produced a large number of paintings in the styles of Rigaud and Nattier
. Cheaper than Rigaud, Ranc found his public until the Spanish arrival. On 13 June 1715 he married his god-daughter and the niece of his teacher, Marguerite Elisabeth Rigaud, daughter of the painter Gaspard
.
On the Bourbons' arrival in Spain with the coronation of Philip V
, grandson of Louis XIV of France
, none of the French painters sent to Spain seemed to be making any impact. Repeated excuses were made to the French court for the low quality of the portraits sent them by the Spanish Bourbons. Philip V wrote to Versailles in 1721 not only to obtain a beautiful portrait of the teenage Louis XV but also to obtain a French painter worthy of this name amidst the famous triumvirate De Troy
, Largillierre
and Rigaud
. Rigaud was most preferred by Philip, having painted him masterfully in 1701, but Rigaud guided him towards the young artists better suited to moving to a far-off country, such as Jean Raoux
from Montpellier. Raoux refused the offer and next Rigaud thought of Jean Ranc, who had married Rigaud's niece in 1715. All these transactions were aided by cardinal Dubois
, then first minister to Louis XV. Thus began Ranc's main career.
Hoping to have a high-flying career in a country where there was no French portraitist to equal or surpass him, Ranc left for Madrid, arriving in 1724 with his first children : Antoine Jean-Baptiste, Hyacinthe, Marguerite Elisabeth, Claude and Hyacinthe-Joseph. His last two children, Jean-Baptiste and Antonia, were to be born in Madrid
.
Ranc then spent a year in Lisbon
from 1729 to 1730 to sketch the faces of the Portuguese monarchy. Thanks to his fashion of allying the "melting touch of Riaud with the Castillian vehemence of Vélasquez
", he gave birth to a new iconography for the Spanish Bourbons. This met with the approval of Philip V, who found in Ranc's portrait of his son Charles III a good alternative to Spanish works by Carreno de Miranda
(portrait of Charles II
).
Suffering from criticism by Spaniards "who sought to do only harm to a foreigner", Ranc's stay in Spain was not at all restful. In vain he demanded the cross of the Order of Saint Michael
or the post of Maestro de Obras Reales (Master of Royal Works), left vacant by the death of Andréa Procaccini (1671–1734). In Spain he had a long and serious dispute with his colleague Michel Ange Houasse
due to their artistic jealousy and desire to excel at court. The fire at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid
at Christmas 1734, which completely destroyed the old Habsburg
palace, started in Ranc's room (he had sight problems) and he plunged into a severe depression, dying a year after the fire.
On Ranc's death, Rigaud was once again asked to choose an official painter to the Spanish court, as attested by Dezallier d'Argenville :
and his wife were attributed by some to Rigaud and wrongly said to represent the President of La Mésangère and his wife on its trip to the auction house at Drouot in 1993 and came back on the Venetian art market as attributed to Largillierre
! The old master had painted busts of these last two but in three quarter length on two independent canvases. Thus, while the male portrait at Drouot proved to be an exact replica of the portrait of Joseph Bonnier de La Mosson at Montpellier
(musée Fabre
) by Ranc, its female pendant imitated a formula used by Rigaud in his portrait of Madame Le Gendre de Villedieu, thus showing how thin and porous is the boundary between Rigaud's and Jean Ranc's styles and how dangerous attributions can sometimes prove!
In 1710, Ranc produced a portrait of Joseph Delaselle, a merchant and arms-dealer from Nantes (Nantes
, musée des Beaux-arts) in which he used the same vocabulary of drapery and a relaxed pose in a rural landscape as Rigaud. Moreover, his 1719 portrait of Louis XV in royal costume aged nine (Versailles, musée national du château, right) confines its imitation to Rigaud's portrait of the five year old Louis XV in his coronation costume (Versailles, musée national du château). The imitation is such that Ranc uses not only similar regalia, but also the heavy drape animating the scene, the column and the ermine mantle. Later, in his portraits of members of the Spanish court, Ranc tried an even closer approach to Rigaud's style, but still failed to fully imitate his suppleness or vitality.
Perfecting Rigaud's techniques, he re-used some military poses established by Rigaud to spruce up a portrait of Daniel-François de Gélos de Voisins d’Ambres, comte de Lautrec. Even if this work's attribution to Ranc has sometimes been called into doubt, it reprises Rigaud's vocabulary of a baton decorated with fleur-de-lys held lightly in the marshal's hand, the other hand held, the tree trunk and the battle scene. Another version of this painting and its female pendant have been attributed to Jean-Marc Nattier
(Geneva, musée des Beaux-arts) but nothing prevents us definitively discerning in this portrait, if not Rigaud's hand, then the pure and simple form of a Catalan formula after him by Ranc or one of his studio assistants!
In conclusion, Ranc's style was very close to that of Rigaud, but his technique is still very recognisable from the very sharp hands it produced and especially from the very brittle folds he used in his portrayal of drapery - those of Rigaud are more supple and melting. Unlike Rigaud, who gave faces an extraordinary truth, Ranc often betrays a certain dryness in his fairly static portrayal of faces. However, Ranc's art was mainly one of pageantry and colour, in which he certainly was talented.
Antoine Ranc
- Life :Antoine Ranc was born at Montpellier around 1634 to a modest family. He became a student of the Flemish artist Jean Zueil, nicknamed "le français" , who probably brought the north European painting style to that city in the Languedoc. Ranc is also known to have been apprenticed to Zueil's...
and his father's former student Hyacinthe Rigaud
Hyacinthe Rigaud
Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris.He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period...
and served in the courts of both Louis XV of France
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
and (from 1723 onwards) Philip V of Spain
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
.
Early life
Ranc "the younger" was the son of the renowned provincial portraitist Antoine Ranc "the elder" who ruled the art scene in Montpellier, a town that had also produced the talents of Sébastien BourdonSébastien Bourdon
Sébastien Bourdon was a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the cathedral of Notre Dame....
and Françoise de Boyere among others. In this era, every painter - including Antoine - battled to obtain lucrative municipal contracts to decorate public buildings. Antoine was a man of taste, forming a personal collection of paintings by the European masters and received many young artists into his studio, including Hyacinthe Rigaud from 1671. The connections between Rigaud and the Ranc family were to prove long and fruitful, even if Rigaud's glory somewhat eclipsed the efforts of that family.
Jean soon moved to Paris, in 1696, where he became the devoted student of his Catalan compatriot and friend Rigaud, working in his studio. His art still showed certain influence from his elder compatriot. He registered the Académie on 30 December 1700, being received into it on 28 July 1703 as a portraitist for his portrait of Nicolas Van Plattenberg, known as "Platte-Montagne" (1631–1706) and that of François Verdier (1651–1730). Finally, on 5 November 1707, he gained the much-coveted title of a history painter thanks to a lost Bearing the cross.
Jean Ranc then became established as a portraitist to the Parisian bourgeoisie and produced a large number of paintings in the styles of Rigaud and Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier , French painter, was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier , a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois , a miniaturist...
. Cheaper than Rigaud, Ranc found his public until the Spanish arrival. On 13 June 1715 he married his god-daughter and the niece of his teacher, Marguerite Elisabeth Rigaud, daughter of the painter Gaspard
Gaspard Rigaud
Gaspard Rigaud was a French painter and portraitist. He was the younger brother of the portraitist Hyacinthe Rigaud. Gaspard's daughter married Hyacinthe's pupil Jean Ranc....
.
Madrid
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
, grandson of Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, none of the French painters sent to Spain seemed to be making any impact. Repeated excuses were made to the French court for the low quality of the portraits sent them by the Spanish Bourbons. Philip V wrote to Versailles in 1721 not only to obtain a beautiful portrait of the teenage Louis XV but also to obtain a French painter worthy of this name amidst the famous triumvirate De Troy
François de Troy
François de Troy was a French painter and engraver who became principal painter to King James II in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Director of the Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture.-Early life:...
, Largillierre
Nicolas de Largillière
Nicolas de Largillière was a painter born in Paris, France.-Early life:Largillière's father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years in London. Sometime after his return to Antwerp, a failed attempt at business led him to the studio of Goubeau...
and Rigaud
Hyacinthe Rigaud
Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris.He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period...
. Rigaud was most preferred by Philip, having painted him masterfully in 1701, but Rigaud guided him towards the young artists better suited to moving to a far-off country, such as Jean Raoux
Jean Raoux
Jean Raoux , French painter, was born at Montpellier.After the usual course of training he became a member of the Academy in 1717 as an historical painter...
from Montpellier. Raoux refused the offer and next Rigaud thought of Jean Ranc, who had married Rigaud's niece in 1715. All these transactions were aided by cardinal Dubois
Guillaume Dubois
Guillaume Dubois was a French cardinal and statesman.-Early years:Dubois, the third of the four great Cardinal-Ministers , was born in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Limousin...
, then first minister to Louis XV. Thus began Ranc's main career.
Hoping to have a high-flying career in a country where there was no French portraitist to equal or surpass him, Ranc left for Madrid, arriving in 1724 with his first children : Antoine Jean-Baptiste, Hyacinthe, Marguerite Elisabeth, Claude and Hyacinthe-Joseph. His last two children, Jean-Baptiste and Antonia, were to be born in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
Ranc then spent a year in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
from 1729 to 1730 to sketch the faces of the Portuguese monarchy. Thanks to his fashion of allying the "melting touch of Riaud with the Castillian vehemence of Vélasquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
", he gave birth to a new iconography for the Spanish Bourbons. This met with the approval of Philip V, who found in Ranc's portrait of his son Charles III a good alternative to Spanish works by Carreno de Miranda
Juan Carreño de Miranda
Juan Carreño de Miranda was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period.Born in Avilés in Asturias, son of a painter with the same name, Juan Carreño de Miranda. His family moved to Madrid in 1623, and he trained in Madrid during the late 1620s as an apprentice to Pedro de Las Cuevas and Bartolomé Roman...
(portrait of Charles II
Charles II of Spain
Charles II was the last Habsburg King of Spain and the ruler of large parts of Italy, the Spanish territories in the Southern Low Countries, and Spain's overseas Empire, stretching from the Americas to the Spanish East Indies...
).
Suffering from criticism by Spaniards "who sought to do only harm to a foreigner", Ranc's stay in Spain was not at all restful. In vain he demanded the cross of the Order of Saint Michael
Order of Saint Michael
The Order of Saint Michael was a French chivalric order, founded by Louis XI of France in 1469, in competitive response to the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece founded by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, Louis' chief competitor for the allegiance of the great houses of France, the Dukes of...
or the post of Maestro de Obras Reales (Master of Royal Works), left vacant by the death of Andréa Procaccini (1671–1734). In Spain he had a long and serious dispute with his colleague Michel Ange Houasse
Michel Ange Houasse
Michel Ange Houasse was a French painter, most of whose career was spent at the court of Philip V of Spain, who summoned him to the court in Madrid in 1715 whilst he was still Philip of Anjou...
due to their artistic jealousy and desire to excel at court. The fire at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid
Royal Alcazar of Madrid
The Royal Alcázar of Madrid was a Muslim fortress built in the second half of the 9th century, at the site of today's Royal Palace of Madrid, Madrid, Spain. The structure was extended and enlarged over the centuries, particularly after the 16th century...
at Christmas 1734, which completely destroyed the old Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
palace, started in Ranc's room (he had sight problems) and he plunged into a severe depression, dying a year after the fire.
On Ranc's death, Rigaud was once again asked to choose an official painter to the Spanish court, as attested by Dezallier d'Argenville :
Style
Rigaud had been a student of Jean Ranc's father Antoine and so the relationship between Jean and his friend and teacher Rigaud went well beyond their relationship via marriage. Jean thus applied Rigaud's precepts but with more entrenched attitudes. His portraits of Joseph Bonnier de la MossonJoseph Bonnier de la Mosson
Joseph Bonnier was a French aristocrat, whose fortune allowed him to have an army career, notably as colonel of the régiment des Dragons-Dauphin and maréchal des logis de la Maison royale. On his father's death he left Paris to take over his job as treasurer of Languedoc. Made baron of la Mosson,...
and his wife were attributed by some to Rigaud and wrongly said to represent the President of La Mésangère and his wife on its trip to the auction house at Drouot in 1993 and came back on the Venetian art market as attributed to Largillierre
Nicolas de Largillière
Nicolas de Largillière was a painter born in Paris, France.-Early life:Largillière's father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years in London. Sometime after his return to Antwerp, a failed attempt at business led him to the studio of Goubeau...
! The old master had painted busts of these last two but in three quarter length on two independent canvases. Thus, while the male portrait at Drouot proved to be an exact replica of the portrait of Joseph Bonnier de La Mosson at Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
(musée Fabre
Musée Fabre
The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern French city of Montpellier, capital of the Hérault département.The museum was founded by François-Xavier Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825. Beginning in 2003, the museum underwent a 61.2 million euro renovation, which was completed in January 2007...
) by Ranc, its female pendant imitated a formula used by Rigaud in his portrait of Madame Le Gendre de Villedieu, thus showing how thin and porous is the boundary between Rigaud's and Jean Ranc's styles and how dangerous attributions can sometimes prove!
In 1710, Ranc produced a portrait of Joseph Delaselle, a merchant and arms-dealer from Nantes (Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
, musée des Beaux-arts) in which he used the same vocabulary of drapery and a relaxed pose in a rural landscape as Rigaud. Moreover, his 1719 portrait of Louis XV in royal costume aged nine (Versailles, musée national du château, right) confines its imitation to Rigaud's portrait of the five year old Louis XV in his coronation costume (Versailles, musée national du château). The imitation is such that Ranc uses not only similar regalia, but also the heavy drape animating the scene, the column and the ermine mantle. Later, in his portraits of members of the Spanish court, Ranc tried an even closer approach to Rigaud's style, but still failed to fully imitate his suppleness or vitality.
Perfecting Rigaud's techniques, he re-used some military poses established by Rigaud to spruce up a portrait of Daniel-François de Gélos de Voisins d’Ambres, comte de Lautrec. Even if this work's attribution to Ranc has sometimes been called into doubt, it reprises Rigaud's vocabulary of a baton decorated with fleur-de-lys held lightly in the marshal's hand, the other hand held, the tree trunk and the battle scene. Another version of this painting and its female pendant have been attributed to Jean-Marc Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier , French painter, was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier , a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois , a miniaturist...
(Geneva, musée des Beaux-arts) but nothing prevents us definitively discerning in this portrait, if not Rigaud's hand, then the pure and simple form of a Catalan formula after him by Ranc or one of his studio assistants!
In conclusion, Ranc's style was very close to that of Rigaud, but his technique is still very recognisable from the very sharp hands it produced and especially from the very brittle folds he used in his portrayal of drapery - those of Rigaud are more supple and melting. Unlike Rigaud, who gave faces an extraordinary truth, Ranc often betrays a certain dryness in his fairly static portrayal of faces. However, Ranc's art was mainly one of pageantry and colour, in which he certainly was talented.
External links
- Jean Ranc on artehistoria.com The Bourbons of Spain The Ranc family tree