Portrait de madame la comtesse de Montesquiou

This undated portrait of the Comtesse de Montesquiou, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Arras, represents Largillière's work for one of France's most distinguished aristocratic families. The Montesquiou family had deep roots in French noble history, and multiple generations would have sought portrait documentation through the leading painters of each era. Without a date, the work can be situated within Largillière's long career through stylistic analysis of wig, dress, and painterly handling—all of which evolved across his six-decade practice. Arras's fine arts museum holds regionally important French collections, and this portrait fits within the broader distribution of Largillière works across provincial French institutions that reflects his immense productivity.

Largillière's undated female portraits can be roughly placed through changes in dress style—fontange headdress in the 1690s, lower hair arrangement by the 1710s, and the lighter, more powder-blonde styling of the 1730s—as well as through his evolving approach to background treatment, moving from darker, more enclosed settings toward lighter, more open architectural backgrounds.