Portrait of Philibert Orry de Vignory

French artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour created this grand pastel portrait of Philibert Orry around 1737. Orry served as France's contrôleur général (finance minister) and directeur des Bâtiments du roi under Louis XV. The portrait shows him wearing the blue ribbon and cross of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, France's highest order of chivalry.

La Tour depicted his subject in an official capacity rather than as a patron of the arts. Orry wears a long, outdated wig characteristic of ministerial portraits of the period. The formal presentation suited someone of his governmental standing. As finance minister, Orry managed France's treasury during a period of economic challenges.

The work measures an impressive 88 by 114 centimeters, executed in pastel on five sheets of blue paper assembled with covered joints and mounted on canvas stretched over a wooden frame. La Tour exhibited it at the Paris Salon of 1745, where it appeared under the entry "M. Orry. Ministre d'État, Contrôleur Général; peint en grand."

The pastel remained in Orry's own collection during his lifetime. The Louvre holds this work today, having restored it in 2004 with additional conservation in 2016. La Tour became the foremost pastel portraitist of 18th-century France, counting Voltaire, Rousseau, and Madame de Pompadour among his famous subjects.