Francois hubert drouais paintings on canvas

Joseph-Hyacinthe-François de Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil (1740–1817), was only eighteen when this imposing portrait was painted by Drouais in 1758.

He was the son of the governor and commander-general of Saint-Domingue, at that time a French colony on the western end of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which is why he points to it on a map. Without lifting a finger, the count earned substantial income from enslaved labour on its plantations.

Vaudreuil was in France by 1757, having left Saint-Domingue (his father ceased to be governor the same year).

When his portrait was painted, he was a junior army officer and had already been at the Battle of Rossbach (5 November 1757) in Saxony during the Seven Years War, when the French had suffered a disastrous defeat by the Prussians.

Although he is not in uniform, the armour at the bottom right of the painting and the map, titled (in French) ‘the Ger