From the entrance to the exhibition at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, Jean Ranc (1674-1735) appeared to be a dazzling colorist: he excelled in violent orange, electric blue, bright pink. He knows like no other how to shimmer the moire ribbon of the order of the Holy Spirit and light up the lace. His brilliant style becomes, over the rooms, very recognizable: wide drapes with broken pleats, geometric, long tapered fingers, mysterious or seductive looks. His portraits certainly resemble those of Hyacinthe Rigaud, his master, whose niece he married, daughter of Gaspard Rigaud, painter too, who had been the pupil of Antoine Ranc, Jean's father, because all these artists live and work as a family, cultivating mutual aid and emulation. Born in the Languedocien or Catalan environment, they dream of storming the aristocratic clans of Versailles and Paris. They do it.
The story of Ranc's models tells of a spectacular social rise, of the bourgeois
This article is for subscribers only. You still have 71% to discover.
Subscribe: € 1 for 2 months
cancellable at any time
Enter your emailAlready subscribed? Login