Jean-Claude Richard

Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non (1727 – 25 November 1791) was a French painter and engraver. He was born and died in Paris.

Family background and history

His family estate, from which he derives his full title, is The Château de Saint-Nom. It is located in the village of Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche in Yvelines, France. The land was purchased by his father, Jean-Pierre Richard (died 1747), a wealthy French lord.

Relationships with contemporary artists

Richard, who had an interest in printmaking, travelled to Rome in 1759 where he met and befriended French artists Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert, both of whom were studying at the French Academy in Rome.

Richard made numerous prints of both Fragonard's and Robert's work, including Robert's Vue prise dans les jardins de Villa Mattei aux environs de Rome (View of the Gardens at the Villa Mattei) in 1761.

Fragonard later painted a portrait of Richard (see picture above), which is currently on display at the Louvre in France.

References

Saint Non

Non (also Nonna or Nonnita) was, according to Christian tradition, the mother of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales.

Legend

The Life of St David, a vita written around 1095 by Rhigyfarch, is our main source of knowledge for both St David (died c. 589) and his mother. Rhigyfarch was a Norman cleric whose father had been Bishop of St David's for 10 years.

Tradition holds that Nonita was raped and that the product of that rape was David - she was "unhappily seized and exposed to the sacrilegious violence of one of the princes of the country". Rhigyfarch recounts the tradition that the rapist was Sanctus, King of Ceredigion, who came upon Non while travelling through Dyfed (in South Wales). After conceiving, Nonita, who remained celibate both before and afterwards, lived on bread and water alone. When a preacher found himself unable to preach in the presence of her unborn child, this was taken as a sign that the child would himself be a great preacher. A local ruler learned of this pregnancy and feared the power of the child to be born. He plotted to kill him upon birth, but on the day of her labour a great storm made it impossible for anyone to travel outdoors. Only the place where Nonita groaned with birth-pangs was bathed in light. The pain was said to have been so intense that her fingers left marks as she grasped a rock and the stone itself split asunder in sympathy with her. A church was built in the place of David's birth and this stone is now concealed in the foundations of the altar.