The Young Widow
Rolland Lefebvre
ca. 1665
Very little is known about the French miniaturist, portrait, and history painter Rolland Lefebvre of Anjou, and nothing at all about the subject of this portrait. He spent time in Venice and Rome (where he is documented in 1636); made an early visit to England, possibly in 1633; and settled permanently in Paris, where in 1662 he is documented at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. In 1676, he went back to England as a kind of protégé of Prince Rupert, count palatine of the Rhine (1619-1682), for whom he produced faux stained marble.The antiquarian George Vertue claimed that some of his paintings were "very obscene." He died in Bear Street and was buried in St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven · Image: Yale Center for British Art, Public domain · Text: Yale Center for British Art, CC0