Attributed to Abraham Bosse

This portrait study is found in an album assembled by the politician and collector Richard Bull (1721-1805) in the late eighteenth century. The ambitious compiler Bull assembled at least 250 albums, most of which contain drawings and copies by largely English artists. This drawing, however, is signed and dated at left, Bosse / 1667, providing the basis for an attribution to the French printmaker Abraham Bosse. In 1956 the album was lent to an exhibition at the Smith College Museum of Art, where M. G. Hogan identified the sitter as Godefroi-Maurice, duc de Bouillon based on a comparison with Robert Nanteuil's earlier portrait of the sitter. Anthony Blunt agreed with Hogan's proposal.
In Nanteuil's 1657 portrait, Godefroy Frederic Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne Bouillon (1636-1721) was 21 years old. In the present study, the same sitter would be 31. The sitters share certain traits--wide-set eyes and a long face--although Bosse's sitter has a more pronounced underbite and prominent lower lip, suggesting that the sitters may not be the same person. The oval format indicates it was likely preparatory for a portrait engraving where it would be set into a frame, although no print has yet been identified.