Attributed to Pierre MIGNARD (1612-1695) - Lot 167

Attributed to Pierre MIGNARD (1612-1695) Presumed portrait of Diane de Joannis de Chateaublanc (1635-1667) Marquise de Ganges, depicted in the figure of a Saint Oval oil on canvas. 73 x 60 cm Annotated on the back: "La Marquise de Ganges". (Restorations) This lot is presented by Alexis Bordes Diane de Joannis de Chateaublanc, best known as Marquise de Ganges de Ganges, was born in 1635 and died in Ganges on June 5, 1667. A great beauty, the Marquise was nicknamed "la belle Provençale". She was noticed by King Louis XIV and had the honor in October 1655 to dance with him in the seventh ballet de la Nuit in the role of Artémise. Following the death of her first husband, the Comte de Castellane, she remarried the Comte de Ganges. Heiress of a personal family fortune, and to protect the inheritance of her her children from her first marriage, she took steps to disinherit her new husband. She became the target of several assassination attempts assassination attempts by relatives of her new husband, particularly particularly her brothers-in-law. She resisted several attempts and fled the family home. She finally succumbs finally succumbed to her husband's greed, while her accomplices caught up caught up with her and stabbed her to death in 1667. Another version version of the story attributes her death to the numerous attempts attempts to poison her. This drama inspired Alexandre Dumas' novel "La Marquise de Ganges", written in Ganges", written in 1893. Another portrait by Nicolas Mignard dated 1653 and presumed to be of the Marquise de Ganges, illustrates the cover of Madame Ferdy Bezzina-Dufour's book, Marquise de Ganges (1635-1667), de la légende à la réalité, Editions Lacour Rediviva, 2017. Another painting by Mignard entitled " Sainte Roseline", circa 1739 and preserved in the Musée de Villeneuve_x0002_lès-Avignon, is said to depict the Marquise de Ganges