(Montpellier 1677–1743 Paris)
Allegorical portrait of a lady of the court at Versailles as a vestal virgin, oil on canvas, 226 x 144 cm, framed,

Provenance: American private collection.

See literature: J. Claparède, Un tricentenaire oublié: Jean Raoux, in: Mïnestral, L’Art des pays d’oc, 10/11, 1977, no. 15; C. Constans, Musée National du Château de Versailles, Catalogue des Peintures, Paris 1980, no. 3751; A. C. Steland, Vestalinnen - Ein zeittypisches Werk des Malers Jean Raoux um 1730, angeregt durch ein Werk wissenschaftlicher Literature und ein Opéra-Ballet, in: Artibus et Historiae, no. 29, 1994, pp. 135–152, fig. 4; cat. “Figures de la Passion”, Musée de la Musique, Paris 2001/2002, p. 240; C. Constans, Musée National du Château de Versailles, Les Peintures, 2 vols, Paris 1995, tome II, no. 4144.
The allegorical portrait depicts a young lady of the Versailles court in a white dress, paying homage in a temple to Vesta, the Roman goddess of fire and the domestic hearth and tutelary goddess of the family. In honour of the goddess, Vesta an eternal flame burnt in the temple to her, and was guarded by vestal virgins, who were virginal temple guardians. The entrance to the temple provides a view of the parkland with a fountain in the background. Cupid armed with a torch winks his eyes to tell us that the innocence of the beauty is not to be taken all that seriously since he has just lit the spark of the flames of love. This is the only new refinement by Raoux for this popular theme, which came down to posterity in four slightly differing versions in total in the hand of the painter. The 1st version was lost in the 19th century in a fire in Bordeaux. A further version from Versailles, dated 1733, is at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon. A very scaled-down version is currently on the art market in Southern Germany. Our version differs clearly, above all in the depiction of the sitter. All of the other three versions portray variants, or authentic copies, of the portrait of Madame Boucher, which was destroyed in Bordeaux, whereas our painting shows a rather younger lady, as yet unidentified. Jean Raoux was the pupil of Jean Ranc and Bon de Boullogne in Paris. In 1704 he was awarded the Grand Prix der Académie Royale and was admitted as a member in 1717