Jean George WILLE (Obermuhle 1715 - Paris 1808) "Louis Phélypeaux Comte de Saint Florentin" Original engraving dated in the plate on the bottom right 1751, from a subject by Louis Tocqué painted in 1749. Beautiful specimen in the fourth and final state with the "Ministre" wording, printed on typical eighteenth-century laid paper bearing the literal watermark of the Papeterie d'Auvergne referable to French paper production of the eighteenth century, with large margins beyond the imprint of the plate, with slight traces of dirt but overall excellent general state of conservation. On the reverse, the stamp of the Broenner Collection (Jult 306) donated by the owner Senator Johann Carl Broenner in 1810 to the Museum of the City of Frankfurt and transferred in 1870 to the Institut Staedel where it is still found today. In 1874 the antiquarian Boerner organized the sale of most of the Doublettes of this magnificent collection in Leipzig. Louis Tocqué portrays the noble Count of Saint Florentin (1705 - 1777) formerly Marquis and then from 1770 Duke de La Vrillière, Minister and Secretary of State to the Court of Louis XV, seated at his sumptuous desk with a letter in his hand, dressed in a coat richly embroidered in gold. The painting is now preserved in the Marseille Museum of Fine Arts. Bibliography: Duplessis "De la Gravure de Portrait en France" Paris 1875 p. 116. Firmin-Didot "Catalog raisonné de la Collection de Portraits de l'école francaise" Paris 1875-1877 n ° 2441. LeBlanc "Catalog de l'Oeuvre de Jean Georges Wille" Leipzig 1847 n ° 124. LeBlanc "Manuel de l'Amateur d'Estampes" Paris 1889 vol.4 pag 229 n ° 48. Thomas "French Portrait Engraving of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries" London 1910 p. 118. Measurements in mm: 508 x 360