Samuel-Jacques Bernard comte de Coubert after the death of his father in 1739, was the son of the financier Samuel Bernard

Samuel Bernard

Samuel Bernard , Count of Coubert , was a French financier.-Life:Of Dutch origin, Samuel Bernard was the son of the painter and engraver Samuel-Jacques Bernard...

, the richest commoner in France and his first wife, née (Anne)-Magdeleine Clergeau; he was superintendent of finance for Queen Maria Leszczyńska

Maria Leszczynska

Marie Leszczyńska was a queen consort of France. She was a daughter of King Stanisław Leszczyński of Poland and Catherine Opalińska. She married King Louis XV of France and was the grandmother of Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X. In France, she was referred to as Marie Leczinska...

 from 1725, a maître des requêtes

Maître des requêtes

Masters of Requests are high-level judicial officers of administrative law in France and other European countries that have existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages.-Old Regime France:...

, conseiller du roi and Grand Croix and Master of Ceremonies of the Order of Saint-Louis.

Like his father he converted from Calvinism

Calvinism

Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

. In 1715 Bernard married Elisabeth-Olive-Louise Frot[t]ier, daughter of the marquis de La Coste-Messelière.

At his father's death he inherited a fortune estimated at 33,000,000 livres. His sensational bankruptcy in 1751, which involved Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

 in a loss of 80,000 livres representing 8,000 livres of income, did not interrupt his career as a grand seigneur, though the estate at his death remained deeply in debt. His richly furnished hôtel particulier

Hôtel particulier

In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it...

was designed by Germain Boffrand

Germain Boffrand

Germain Boffrand was one of the most gifted French architects of his generation. A pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Germain Boffrand was one of the main creators of the precursor to Rococo called the style Régence, and in his interiors, of the Rococo itself...

 and built in 1741-45 at 46, rue du Bac, backing onto the Paris. He filled it with works of art. For the dining-room, panelled in oak left its natural color (à la capucine), Jean-Baptiste Oudry

Jean-Baptiste Oudry

Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game.-Biography:...

 painted in 1742 two large canvases with hunting dogs, which rank among Oudry's most splendid decorations. The white-and-gold boiseries of the grand salon, with their overdoor

Overdoor

An "overdoor" is a painting, bas-relief or decorative panel, generally in a horizontal format, that is set, typically within ornamental mouldings, over a door, or was originally intended for this purpose.The overdoor is usually architectural in form, but may take the form of a cartouche in Rococo...

s of the Four Continents

Four continents

Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Europe in the north, Asia in the east, Africa in the south, and America in the west...

 painted by four painters who were providing tapestry cartoons

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

 for the looms at Aubusson

Aubusson tapestry

The Aubusson tapestry manufacture of the 17th and 18th centuries managed to compete with the royal manufacture of Gobelins tapestry and the privileged position of Beauvais tapestry...

: Jacques Dumont le Romain

Jacques Dumont le Romain

Jacques Dumont called "le Romain" , was a French history and portrait painter, called "the Roman" from his youthful residence at Rome and to distinguish him from other artists named Dumont, notably his fellow-academician Jean-Joseph Dumont...

, Charles-Joseph Natoire

Charles-Joseph Natoire

Charles-Joseph Natoire was a French painter in the Rococo manner, a pupil of François Lemoyne and director of the French Academy in Rome, 1751-1775...

, Charles Restout and Carle Van Loo, are now installed in the Israel Museum

Israel Museum

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

, Jerusalem. Books and manuscripts from his extensive library, dispersed at auction in 1754 and 1756, are recognizable from the arms surrounded by the collar of the Order of Saint-Louis and the motto Bellicae vitutis praemium stamped on their rich bindings.