The Duke of Richelieu
Francesco Maria Schiaffino (1688-1763) · 1748
Louis François Armand du Plessis, duke of Richelieu, great-nephew of the cardinal, stands in the long robes of the Order of the Holy Spirit and holds the baton of a marshal of France, the rank he received in 1748. The Genoese sculptor Francesco Maria Schiaffino piles up the textures: the heavy embroidered mantle, the lace at the cuffs, the curled wig and the chain of the order across the chest. The pose is a courtier's, one foot forward and the chin raised, and the figure is a little under life size.
Genoa had reason to be grateful to the duke. As commander of the French forces he helped the republic resist the Austrians in 1747 and 1748, and the city ordered a statue larger than life for the hall of the Grand Council in the Doge's Palace, made in 1748 after a portrait taken the previous year. That statue was destroyed in 1797. The marble in front of you is the reduction Schiaffino sent to the duke himself, very likely at his own request, as recorded by the sculptor's friend Carlo Giuseppe Ratti. It entered the Louvre in 1855.
Did You Know? The full-size version once stood in the Doge's Palace of Genoa and was destroyed in 1797; this smaller marble, sent to the duke himself, is what survives.
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