Overall: 43cm (17in) x 34cm (13.5in)
Oil on canvas. French school. Half-length portrait of Jean Nicolas de Soyard d’Herouville, Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of St Louis, bareheaded and looking right in the full dress uniform of the 20th Dragoons with a fringed epaulet on the left shoulder and a contre-epaulet without fringe on the left, as worn by squadron commanders and indicating the rank of captains or lieutenants depending on the length of the left fringe. Contained in period giltwood frame.
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Lieutenant Jean Nicolas Soynard d’Herouville was the member of the Normandy nobility. He was the son of Charles-Nicolas Soynard, sieur d’Hérouville, who held office in Caen and Rouen under the ancien régime. Jean Nicolas was appointed a supernumary officer in the Bourbon Regiment of Dragoons and was appointed Chevalier (knight) of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis in 1790. During the French Revolution the Bourbon Dragoons were retitled the 3rd Dragoons and sent to the Army of the North. Soynard d’Herouville transferred to the 20e Regiment de Dragons which fought in Revolutionary actions of Landrecies, Quesnoy, Valenciennes, and Aldenhoven with the Armée du Nord in 1793-94.
Ref: Mazas, Alexandre (1856) ‘Histoire de l'Ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis depuis son institution en 1693 jusqu'en 1830 …', Vol. II