Jean Claude Richard, Abbot of Saint-Non (Fanciful Figure)

Saint-Non is a benefice, not a saint

The title names a man by the abbey attached to his income. An abbot of Saint-Non is not a saint and is not being identified as one; the phrase works the way of Canterbury or of Ascoli works, as an address folded into a name. Nothing in this entry is hagiographic, and no attribute applies. The parenthesis that closes the title — Fanciful Figure — belongs to a category of eighteenth-century picture in which a sitter is dressed for a role rather than recorded as himself.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1769 and gives the Louvre in Paris as its location. The dimensions are 65 x 80 cm, wider than tall. The style is Rococo — 12 entries in this collection carry that label — and the nationality French; the measured colour family is brown.

A category field that names two sexes

The record files this under Portraits with both Male and Female as subheadings, for a title that names one man. This page reports the pairing without resolving it: it may describe a composition holding more than the title accounts for, or it may be a fault in the field. The record does not say which, and guessing between the two would put an invention on the page next to the facts. What the entry establishes for certain is a portrait, dated 1769, in the Louvre, with a saint's name in it that names a building.