Portrait du marquis et de la marquise de Faventines jouant de la musique ("Portrait of the Marquis and Marquise de Faventines playing music") by Jean Valade

Pierre de Faventines (1695-1776) was a wool merchant from the Cévennes who invested in silk production from the 1720s, becoming the most important industrialist in his region, but his ambitions were much broader. Often born of wool or salt, Languedoc fortunes, mostly Protestant, were integrated into international circuits thanks to the diaspora of religionists, both before and after the Revocation. The creation of privileged companies and factories was an opportunity for Languedoc financiers to assert the preponderance of their capital and their leadership role: firstly, in the local drapery and Mediterranean trade, as witnessed by the Pennautier fine cloth factory, which also played an essential role in the Compagnie du Levant; secondly, on all the seas of the globe. In 1732, he became commander of the island of Mayotte for the French East India Company.

The Languedoc financier began working for the armies and the royal navy. Pierre Faventines' rise to prominence was meteoric. He became intendant to the Duchess of Bourbon, then general farmer from 1756 to 1776, the monarchy's closed and sacred battalion, responsible for collecting taxes for the kingdom. The family's children forged important alliances, acquiring the houses, lands, titles and possessions of the former aristocracy.

The family portrait they commissioned from Jean Valade reflects the couple's social and economic ambitions. Jean Valade, a registered painter in 1750 and admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture four years later, was an important figure in the Parisian art world. Among the witnesses at his wedding (1752) was the future Marquis de Marigny, Director General of the King's Buildings since 1751.

The couple's leisure time is devoted to the arts and letters, with the "négligé" of the artist's soul, particularly in the Madame de Faventines pose. She plays the guitar, the instrument of elegant nobility since the famous works by Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), in which young men and women nonchalantly play the guitar as they stroll through the garden. However, the erotic game is made more explicit in Madame de Faventines, with her skirt widely brushed aside by her dog as she sits on a sofa, a fashionable piece of furniture with a sulphurous reputation since Crébillon fils's 1737 novel of the same name.

Although the psychological finesse of the two protagonists is not as apparent as in Quentin de La Tour or Jean-Baptiste Perroneau, Jean Valade's portrait of a lively, intimate family couple is highly accurate, documenting the wishes of financial backers in their representation for posterity.

Jean Valade's decor, on the other hand, is more conventional, such as André-Charles Boulle's flat desk from 1710, an emblematic piece of furniture by the best-known 18th-century cabinetmaker and foundryman, as well as the clock surmounted by an Amur surmounting Time. The idea is to embody a sumptuous universe created by enlightened taste. It should be noted, however, that the same secretary, clock and decor are to be found in the portrait of Mr. Carré (cf. note on the portrait), suggesting that the painter was proposing a form of composition to the client, with his own models for accessories and decor.

It's also easy to understand why Denis Diderot didn't hold the painter in high regard, deeming him "a very poor painter" (Salon of 1769), not only because he had a parallel business as an art dealer, but also because the use of a repetitive process did little to enhance the painter's art. He produced his best-known paintings in the 1760s, including the portraits of Pierre and Elisabeth Faventines. Between 1750 and 1770, he became a well-known rococo pastellist with a clientele of aristocrats and financiers, who brought him substantial income.