Portrait of Louis Richard de La Bretèche in Fancy Dress, formerly called Music

Louis Richard de La Bretèche and his younger brother, the abbé de Saint-Non, were sons of Jean-Pierre Richard, lord of Saint-Non la Bretèche, and they split their father's title between them, one brother taking each half. Both were also grandsons of the painter Louis de Boullongne. La Bretèche, born in 1722, made his career in money, as a receiver-general of finances, one of the financiers who handled the crown's tax revenue. Fragonard puts him in a Spanish-style costume of yellow silk with a white ruff and a red ornament in his hair, turning with a sly half smile over a guitar. For a long time the canvas was called Music, as if it were an allegory, and the Louvre refined the identification only in 2013. He signed it lower right, frago 1769, in thick paint. On the back an old label states that it was painted by Fragonard in 1769, in one hour's time, and that label is the source of the famous claim about how fast these portraits were made.