Baron de Villequin

The Baron de Villequin was from the Rouen region. Although there is little information about him, there are indications that the Villequin name was quite well known in Rouen and surrounding communities (in Lindebeuf and Grand-Quevilly for instance) especially from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Also, one alternative spelling for the name may have been de Villequier as attested by René de Villequin, also known as René de Villequier, a close advisor to the French court in the late sixteenth century. If there is a link, René de Villequier bore the title of “Baron de Clairvaux, d’Aubigny et d’Eury,” which reflected ties to ancient Britain. The de Villequin line apparently was extinguished at some point in the seventeenth century.

At an unspecified date in the nineteenth century, the Baron de Villequin acquired La dormeuse by the Dutch seventeenth century painter Gabriel Metsu (Schloss German no. 132/ French no. 156). The painting entered the collection of Adolphe Schloss before 1910.