Jacques Blanchard
Charity
circa 1634-35
Oil on canvas
110.5 cm x 142.8 cm (43 1/2 in. x 56 1/4 in.)
The Suida-Manning Collection

Jacques Blanchard's style is a very attractive combination of a completely French, late-Mannerist formation and the influences from an Italian sojourn in 1624-1628, especially from Venetian painting. Traditionally called the "French Titian," although really more indebted to Paolo Veronese, Blanchard tended to infuse relatively simple, classicizing constructions and figure types with a soft luminosity, loose paint handling, and sensuous appeal. Although a bit formulaic and lacking in intellectual rigor, his works anticipate some basic concerns and conventions of later French academic painting, from Charles Le Brun through William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The personification of Charity offered a high-minded pretext for rendering feminine beauty and physical allure. It was apparently a favorite of Blanchard and his patrons. This is one of several interpretations of the subject and one of six recorded versions of this particular composition. The primary version (Louvre, Paris) was one of the artist's most highly regarded works from the time it entered the royal collections in 1662. The present version, with its chiaroscuro less pronounced and its finish smoother, is a replica by the artist's own hand in excellent condition.