Portrait of the Painter Sébastien Bourdon by Hyacinthe Rigaud
The Ultimes are prints made from the original etching plates in the Chalcographie collection at the Musée du Louvre before they were put into storage for preservation reasons.
For reasons of preservation, it was decided to stop printing plates engraved before 1848. Before they left the Ateliers to go into the Louvre's reserves, some were printed one last time. These are the last ones. Each print is dated, numbered and stamped, and is sold with a certificate of authenticity, in a limited edition of 10.
Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671) was a French painter of the Grand Siècle. He excelled in all genres and was inspired by the greatest artists, such as Nicolas Poussin and Pieter van Laer.
Like all painters of his century, he travelled to Rome. His works helped him to achieve a certain renown, and in 1648 he was one of the twelve founding members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1652, he was even appointed first painter by Queen Christine of Sweden.
A little anecdote: he is sometimes described as an imitator of genius, because of some of the copies he made, which were judged to be superior to the original.
This engraving of him, based on his portrait painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud, is the reception piece for the Académie royale by Laurent Cars (1699-1771), a talented engraver. As part of the entrance examination for the Académie, engravers were required to produce an engraved portrait in order to judge a student's talents before admission.
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