Hyacinthe's father, Josep Matias Pere Ramon Rigau, was a tailor (sastre in Catalan) in the parish of Saint-Jean de Perpignan, "as well as a painter",[2] descended from a line of well-established artists in the Perpignanian basin who had been commissioned to decorate several tabernacles and other panels for liturgical use.

[5] Honorat minor is generally identified as the painter of The Canonisation of Saint Hyacinthe, formerly in Perpignan's Dominican convent and now at Joch,[6] the tabernacle of the church of Palau-del-Vidre (28 March 1609) and the retable at Montalba near Amélie-les-Bains.

[10] Even if they had only been registered from 1681 onwards, the date when he moved to Paris, his "youthful" portraits were probably pre-dated, like those of Antoine Domergue, the king's councillor and provincial governor of Lyon, in 1686,[11] and "Mr Sarazin de Lion", of a famous dynasty of bankers of Swiss origins, in 1685.

[12] Rigaud's portrait of Jean de Brunenc, painted in 1687, a silk merchant, banker and consul of Lyon, assembles all the ingredients for which the painter was later successful.

[15] In 1681, when Hyacinthe Rigaud decided to move to Paris, inspired by Drevet who was also attracted to the capital, he had already established a good reputation amongst the local clientele, from Switzerland to Aix-en-Provence.

The year 1695 also saw the production of two versions of Christ expiant sur la Croix, with a distinct Flemish influence, proof of Rigaud's rare incursion into the domain of historical depictions or the "great genre".

This was in fact solicited by the duke of Saint-Simon, to depict Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, an abbot, using a skillful subterfuge that remains notable in the history of painting.

He garnered the core of his clientele among the richest circles as well as among the bourgeois, financiers, nobles, industrialists and government ministers, also courting all the major ambassadors of his time and several European monarchs.

He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period.

For Jacques Thuillier, professor at the Collège de France: Hyacinthe Rigaud was one of those French painters who knew the highest celebrity under the Ancien Régime.

[23]True "photographs",[24] faces that Diderot called "letters of recommendation written in the common language of all men",[25] Rigaud's works today populate the world's major museums.

Rigaud painted many important figures in the world of art such as the sculptors Desjardins (to whom, as an old friend, he delivered three successive portraits), Girardon and Coysevox; the painters Joseph Parrocel, La Fosse and Mignard; the architects De Cotte, Hardouin-Mansart and Gabriel.