Antoine de Favray

Antoine de Favray - Portrait of the Countess of Vergennes in Turkish Attireontes of Vergennes in Turkish Gown, Pera Museum, Istambul.

Chevalier Antoine de Favray (8 September 1706, Bagnolet – 9 February 1798, Malta) was a French painter. He is known for his portraits of personalities of the Ottoman Empire, as well as paintings of Grand Masters in Malta.^[1] In 1762 Antoine de Favray moved to Constantinople like several other European artist of his time did too, where he spent nine years. During his stay in Constantinople he was painting numerous genre scenes of the everyday life in Turkey under Louis XVI and he also depicted locals and foreign dignitaries. Two portraits are especially notable, one is of the French ambassador Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes (1717-1787) who was living in Constantinople between 1754 to 1768 and the second, that the painter painted two years later, of the ambassador’s wife. The painting depicts the native-born Annette Duvivier de Testa (1730-1798) who became the ambassador's wife. She had previously been married to Testa, a merchand and member of a prominent Genoese family who settled in Pera for several centuries. Favray portrayed both the ambassador and ambassador’s wife in a rich Turkish dress.^[2]

Notes

1. The Rough Guide to Malta & Gozo by Victor Paul Borg, p.132
2. "A Visual Study of Thomas Hope". www.thomashope.org. Retrieved 2015.

Gallery

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  French ambassador Charles Gravier de Vergennes in Ottoman dress, painted by Antoine de Favray, 1766, Pera Museum, Istanbul.

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  The Mirabita Sisters, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

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  Audience of Charles de Vergennes with Sultan Osman III in 1755.