Jacob Ferdinand Voet (Antwerp 1639-1689 Paris)

Philippe de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme, was the great-grandson of Henry IV and Gabrielle d'Estrées. In 1678, he became Grand Cross ad honorem of the Order, and was appointed Grand Prior of France in 1693. In the Spanish War of Succession, he was second-in-command to his brother Louis-Joseph, Duc de Vendôme, but after disobeying orders at the Battle of Cassano in 1706, he was exiled to Lyon. He left for Venice and became patron of the painter Jean Raoux. Vendôme returned to France in 1710, regaining all of his honours.

The present painting was presumably commissioned soon after he was made Grand Cross ad honorem in 1678. An earlier version, where he is depicted as slightly younger and without the Maltese Cross, was sold at Sotheby's, London, 15 December 1982, lot 66. We are grateful to Professor Francesco Petrucci for confirming both the attribution and the identification of the sitter, on the basis of photographs, and tentatively dating the portrait to the 1680s. Another version of this portrait was in the collection of Sir Joseph Robinson (see F. Petrucci, Ferdinand Voet, Rome, 2005, p. 279, no. 300).