French 1690-1743 Nicolas Lancret (22 January 1690 ?C 14 September 1743), French painter, was born in Paris, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans. His first master was Pierre d'Ulin, but his acquaintance with and admiration for Watteau induced him to leave d'Ulin for Gillot, whose pupil Watteau had been. Two pictures painted by Lancret and exhibited on the Place Dauphine had a great success, which laid the foundation of his fortune, and, it is said, estranged Watteau, who had been complimented as their author. Lancret's work cannot now, however, be taken for that of Watteau, for both in drawing and in painting his touch, although intelligent, is dry, hard and wanting in that quality which distinguished his great model; these characteristics are due possibly in part to the fact that he had been for some time in training under an engraver. The number of his paintings (of which over eighty have been engraved) is immense; he executed a few portraits and attempted historical composition, but his favorite subjects were balls, fairs, village weddings, etc. The British Museum possesses an admirable series of studies by Lancret in red chalk, and the National Gallery, London, shows four paintings--the "Four Ages of Man" (engraved by Desplaces and l'Armessin), cited by d'Argenville amongst the principal works of Lancret. In 1719 he was received as Academician, and became councillor in 1735; in 1741 he married a grandchild of Boursault, author of Aesop at Court.  Related Paintings of Nicolas Lancret :. | Das Schinkenfrustuk | A Lady and Gentleman Taking Coffee with Children in a Garden | La remise de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit dans la chapelle de Versailles | The Four Ages of Man Maturity | A Scene from Corneille's Tragedy Le Comte d Essex |
Related Artists:
Ivan Argunov
Russian Rococo Era Painter , 1727/1729-1802 Russian painter and teacher. He came from a family of serfs, belonging to the Counts Sheremetev, that produced several painters and architects. In about 1746-7 he was a pupil of Georg Christoph Grooth (1716-49), who painted portraits of the Sheremetev family. With Grooth, Argunov worked on the decoration of the court church at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). A full-length icon of St John of Damascus (1749; Pushkin, Pal.-Mus.), in Rococo style, is distinguished by its secular, decorative character. The Dying Cleopatra (1750; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.) is typical of Rococo decorative painting of the mid-18th century, with its striking combination of light, soft tones. Argunov subsequently painted in a quite different style, mainly producing portraits, of which about 60 are known. Among the first of these are pendant portraits of Ivan Lobanov-Rostovsky and his wife (1750 and 1754; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), in which the sitters are idealized, as in ceremonial court portraits.
THEOPHANES the Greek
Greek Byzantine Style Painter, ca.1330-1410
Gustaaf Vanaise
painted The Negroe and I in 1886