Portrait of Françoise-Marguerite, Countess of Grignan

The woman in this portrait owes her fame to letters she received rather than anything she did. Francoise-Marguerite was the daughter of Madame de Sevigne, and in 1671 she left Paris for Provence, where her husband governed, far from the mother who adored her. That separation produced one of the treasures of French literature, the stream of witty, tender, gossiping letters her mother sent after her over the following years, printed long after both women were gone. Pierre Mignard painted the daughter around 1674, in her twenties, in the flattering court manner that made him the favorite portraitist of grand ladies. Madame de Sevigne thought her the most beautiful girl in France and said so freely. What remains of that devotion is partly this face, and partly several hundred letters addressed to it.