Joseph Siffred Duplessis – Master of 18thC French Portraiture Joseph Siffred Duplessis, a name perhaps less immediately recognizable than some of his contemporaries, nevertheless occupies a pivotal position in the history of 18th-century French portraiture. Born in Carpentras in 1725, he wasn’t born into an established artistic dynasty but rather a family where creativity simmered beneath the surface of practical life; his father, a surgeon, possessed a keen amateur interest in painting and provided young Joseph with his earliest instruction. This grounding in observation – the precise rende…