FRENCH SCHOOL circa 1770 - Lot 5

FRENCH SCHOOL circa 1770 Portrait of Nicolas Marcelin de Bréard in blue jacket, holding the ordinance of 1689 Original canvas and stretcher Height : 72,7 cm Width : 59 cm Long inscription on paper attached to the back identifying the model. Nicolas Marcellin de Bréard (1714 -? ), treasurer of the Port of Rochefort, clerk to the Treasury of the Navy, married Jeanne Elisabeth Boutiron (1723 - 1750) in 1738. Expert: TURQUIN firm Marcellin-Nicolas BREARD (Rochefort, 1714-Paris, 1785) was the son of Jacques Bréard (1685-1734), royal notary and cashier at the Trésor de la Marine in Rochefort, and Marie-Anne Marcellin (1681-1731). First married Jeanne Elisabeth BOUTIRON (1722-1749), then Marie MATHAR de GOURVILLE (1740-1768). His eldest brother, Jacques-Michel Bréard (1711-1775), was appointed Comptroller of the Navy in Québec in 1748, then member of the Sovereign Council of New France in 1749, and set up numerous trading activities with Canada and the West Indies. Marcellin-Nicolas Bréard was a writer for the Navy, then a small supplier of wood to the Navy, and finally, in April 1758, became the Rochefort agent of the Navy's treasurers general - a position he held until 1768. We don't know if he was directly involved in Jacques-Michel's affairs in Quebec, but he was well placed to do so. He had to settle all official colonial accounts in Rochefort, paying, for example, 144,969 livres for cargoes shipped to Canada in 1760 aboard three Bordeaux vessels, the Machault, the Fidélité and the Marquis de Malauze. This position enabled Marcellin-Nicolas to increase his fortune from some 40,000 livres to around half a million and, as his office was guaranteed by a bond of 60,000 livres granted by Jacques-Michel in 1758, we can reasonably conjecture that the two brothers did business together. These conjectures are in no way weakened by the discovery that the Intendant de la Marine at Rochefort, Charles-Claude de Ruis-Embito de La Chesnardière, was the friend and protector of Marcellin-Nicolas, who had obtained, thanks to him, the position of agent to the Treasurers General.