Portrait of Louis-nicolas Clerambault 1676-1749
Original oil on canvas
Dimensions: 110 X 90 CM excluding frame

The painter depicts the artist in three-quarter view, wearing an elegant blue velvet frock coat over a pink silk waistcoat trimmed with lace. He is seated before his harpsichord, a score of "Cantata of Orpheus" resting on his easel. This portrait was reproduced by Louis-Simon Lempereur, an engraver of interpretations, born in 1728 and died in 1807, who was engraver to the King. This engraving is held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF).

Born into a family of musicians in Paris in 1676, Louis-Nicolas Clerambault studied violin and harpsichord. He was a pupil of André Raison, organist of the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève and the Jacobins church on Rue Saint-Jacques. He also studied composition and singing with Jean-Baptiste Moreau. Louis XIV, having heard one of his cantatas, commissioned him to compose several for his chamber music and appointed him superintendent of music for Madame de Maintenon. Organist of the Grands-Augustins church since 1704, he succeeded Nivers, who died in 1714, at the organs of Saint-Sulpice and the Royal House of Saint-Cyr. It was in this position, which was confirmed after the death of Madame de Maintenon, that he developed the genre of the "French cantata," of which he is the undisputed master. In 1719 he succeeded his master André Raison as organist of the church of the Grands-Jacobins.
He is known for being the first master of the French sonata and cantata, inspired by Italian models.