Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771)

after Louis Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707 - Paris 1771) . Oil painting on canvas, Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) after Louis-Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707 - Paris 1771). 1759. Painted oval. Head and shoulders portrait of a man against a dark background, in a painted oval simulated stone surround. He has shortish grey hair. He wears a green coat over a white embroidered stock, and a waistcoat with gold braid just visible. Unsigned. Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), a Paris-born philosophe of – as his name would suggest – Swiss origin, was a philosopher; member of the family of physicians of that name. He began his career as a fermier-général (tax farmer) and chamberlain to the Queen, but in 1751 withdrew to the château de Voré (which he had bought in 1749 from the son of Louis XIV’s celebrated physician, Fagon), to devote himself to philosophy, philanthropy, and work for the Encyclopédie. His most celebrated work, De l’Esprit (1758), was censured by the Pope and burned by order of the Parlement de Paris. He visited England in 1764. His posthumously published De l’homme had a great influence on Jeremy Bentham and the British Utilitarians. Ickworth, Suffolk (Accredited Museum)