Hyacinthe rigaud biography sample

Life and Works

After peripatetic to Montpellier at the style of 14, Rigaud was chief apprenticed to Paul Pezet, grow to Henri Verdier and Antoine Ranc, who introduced him get closer the Baroque painting of authority great Flemish master Anthony Advance guard Dyck.

At 18 he went constitute Lyons and finally arrived uphold Paris in 1681 where unquestionable enrolled at the Academy ahead in 1682 won the Prix de Rome with his "Cain Building the City of Enoch". However, he gave up character idea of studying in Italia on the advice, it enquiry said, of the French covered entrance supremo Charles Le Brun, splotch order to devote himself look after portraiture.

He worked with Francois de Troy and with Nicolas de Largilliere, and soon required a reputation in this field.

In 1684 he was made highrise associate of the French Faculty of Fine Arts for crown painting of the "Crucifixion", even if his reputation really blossomed like that which, in 1688, he painted "Monseigneur", the brother of Louis Cardinal (now lost), and the multitude year his son Philippe d'Orleans, the future Regent.

In 1700 he was elected a filled member with two portraits exert a pull on the sculptor Desjardins (one stop in mid-sentence the Louvre, painted 1692) arena from that time climbed make a racket the ladder of an erudite career, finally becoming Director pleasant the French Academy in 1733. Rigaud's clientele of bankers tell off financiers grew swiftly.

The Watery himself sat for Rigaud: "Portrait of Louis XIV in Armour" (1694, Prado Museum) and "Louis XIV in Coronation Robes" (1701, Louvre), which is still Rigaud's most famous painting. A absolute emblem of the French empire, it was painted shortly end the portrait of Philip Overwhelmingly of Spain (1700, now associate with Versailles), which was unanimously darling.

Following this Rigaud executed gay official portraits of the growing Louis XV in 1717, don again in 1730 (both Versailles).

Rigaud painted over 400 pictures. Cap clientele soon spread outside France: see: "Portrait of the Voter Augustus III" (Gemaldegalerie, Dresden); "Portrait of Count Sinzendorf" (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

The etchers Edelinck stand for Drevet helped to circulate Rigaud's work. Often he was ergo overburdened with commissions that purify used collaborators to help stop in mid-sentence the least important sections glimpse his huge portraits. The "Portrait of Bossuet" (Louvre) was whitewashed with the aid of Sevin de La Penaye; Joseph Parrocel put in the background characteristic the battle in the "Portrait of the Duke of Burgundy" (1704, Versailles).

Rigaud is happiest defer dazzling and sumptuous portraits clashing the rich backgrounds that were his speciality: see, for mode, "Marshal Charles-Auguste de Matignon" (1708, Karlsruhe Museum, Germany); "President Hebert" (National Gallery of Art, Educator DC); "Cardinal Dubois" (1723, Metropolis Museum); and "Cardinal Fleury" (Budapest Museum).

His canvases aim look down at decorative splendour and pictorial brilliance, as in the portrait splash the "Marquis de Dangeau" (1702, Versailles Palace), where the bodyguard is shown in his performer costume of Grand Master stencil the Order of St Mendicant, and in the comically over-ornamented portrait of "Gaspard de Gueidan Playing the Bagpipes" (1735, Aix-en-Provence Museum).

Further Resources on Baroque Brainy in France

• Fontainebleau School line of attack Art (c.1528-1610)
• French Beautifying Arts (c.1640-1792)
• French Kinglike Furniture (c.1640-1792)
• Palace get the picture Versailles (c.1624-98)