The Marquis d'Ossun

Jules-César-Denis van Loo created the oil-on-canvas portrait of the Marquis d'Ossun around 1780. The work entered the documented ownership chain with Charles Hour in Paris, who sold it after World War I to Mrs. Marshall Field (née Delia Spencer) of Chicago and Washington, D.C.; this is confirmed by a 1955 letter from her niece to the National Gallery of Art. Upon Mrs. Field's death in 1937, the portrait passed by inheritance to her niece, Mrs. Albert J. Beveridge (née Catherine Spencer Eddy), of Indianapolis and Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.

In 1955 it was given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it is held under accession number 1955.7.1.

No exhibition history for the work is documented in the available records.

Created around 1780, this oil on canvas presents a formal portrait of the Marquis d'Ossun. Executed by the French artist César Van Loo, the work captures the aristocrat seated in a richly appointed interior, emphasizing his status through dress and surrounding objects.

The sitter is shown seated, dressed in an opulent velvet coat adorned with elaborate embroidery and a prominent red flower on the chest. He holds a folded document in his right hand, suggesting a moment of private correspondence or official business, while the surrounding objects reinforce his cultured and affluent identity.

During the late eighteenth century, French portraiture often combined realistic likeness with symbolic elements that signaled the sitter’s education and taste. The inclusion of a bust and a stack of books in the background aligns with contemporary conventions that linked noble status to intellectual refinement.