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Jean-Baptiste Pouquelin was born into a bourgeois French family but, when young, gave up a settled career for the theatre and is now known by his stage name of Molière. He became a distinguished playwright, still regarded as one of the greatest masters of comedy in western literature, whose works included ‘Tartuffe’, ‘Le Misanthrope’ and ‘Le Malade Imaginaire’. This portrait of Molière, listed in Sir Hans Sloane’s catalogue as ‘310 The Busto of Moliere’ is one of a group of five owned by Sloane (also including Corneille, St Teresa and two deleted items) for which no provenance is given. It is not unlike the well known portrait by Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), painted around 1658, now in the Musée Condé at Chantilly but is by no means identical.