Portrait of the Marquis Jean-Octave de Villars

A man with long hair falling down his back stands with one hand resting on a red chair. He wears a brown velvet-like coat with a blue cloth draped over his shoulder.

The sitter wears a justaucorps, a coat characterized by large turned-back cuffs, and his powdered white hair is neatly arranged and falls down his back. He had his portrait painted by Rigaud together with his elder brother, Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars, a soldier and diplomat.

Rigaud was a painter who tried to get at a person's inner nature not only through outward appearance but through noble bearing and expressive gestures, and this trait can be seen in the dignified, proud expression of this sitter. Rigaud served as court painter from the end of Louis XIV's reign into the reign of Louis XV, and in later life became director of the Academy.