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for Pierre Mignard
Pierre Mignard
French, 1612 - 1695
Brother of Nicolas Mignard.
1. Training in France and early years in Rome, to 1657.
Pierre Mignard studied first under Jean Boucher in Bourges, then copied the 16th-century decorations at the château of Fontainebleau by Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio and other artists. He later went to Paris, where in 1633 he entered the studio of Simon Vouet, the most prominent representative of the Italian Baroque style in France. There he formed a lasting friendship with the painter and, later, writer Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy. Towards the end of 1635 Mignard left Paris for Rome, staying in Italy until October 1657. Monville, his first biographer, recorded several portraits painted in Italy, as well as some large religious compositions, including a St Charles Giving Communion to the Dying (1677; untraced). Only two portraits are known to survive, those of the Ambassador of Malta to the Holy See: Commandeur Des Vieux (1653; Valetta, N. Mus.) and a man presumed to be Senator Marco Peruta (Prague, N.G., Šternberk Pal.), which was painted during Mignard’s stay in Venice in 1654. Both portraits already show the quality that was to make Mignard one of the outstanding portrait painters of his time: the ability to catch a vivid and natural likeness, in contrast to the stern stiffness of earlier 17th-century French portraiture.
In 1655 Mignard returned to Rome from Venice via Bologna and Florence. He was called to the Vatican to paint the portrait of the newly elected Pope Alexander VII (untraced; engraving by van Schuppen, 1661, in Paris, Bib. N.), and collaborated with other artists under the supervision of Nicolas Poussin on the copying of the famous decorations by Agostino Carracci and Annibale Carracci in the Palazzo Farnese, made for Alphonse-Louis du Plessis, brother of Cardinal Richelieu (exh. Paris, Louvre, late 18th century; untraced). The influence of the art of the Carracci, uniting the Roman emphasis on drawing with Venetian colourism, persisted in Mignard’s religious and historical paintings throughout his career. He was also influenced by such painters of the contemporary Roman School as Pietro da Cortona and Andrea Sacchi, but was mainly attracted by the soft and graceful style of the Bolognese master Francesco Albani, whom he knew and whose works to some degree inspired his famous paintings of the Madonna (e.g. Madonna with the Grapes, c. 1656; Paris, Louvre). The latter were known by the punning title of ‘Mignardes’ because of their sweet beauty, and have often been attributed to such Italian painters as Sassoferrato.
2. Maturity in Paris, 1657–c 1680.
When Mignard left Rome for France in 1657 he was a member of the Accademia di S Luca and had a certain reputation as a portrait painter and a degree of prosperity. During a brief stay in Avignon he met up with his brother Nicolas and became acquainted with the dramatist Molière, of whom he went on to paint several portraits, now known only from engravings and descriptions. In 1658 he went to Fontainebleau to paint the first of his ten portraits of Louis XIV, the originals of which are impossible to identify among the profusion of copies. With the exception of a short visit to Avignon in 1664, Mignard remained in Paris, where he soon became the most fashionable and prolific portrait painter of his time. The calm pride and self-assurance that mark the faces of his paintings, so typical of 17th-century portraiture, exemplify his ability to render the austere majesty of the court of Louis XIV. Unfortunately, few of his large allegorical portraits survive or are preserved in engravings. For the most part Mignard’s abilities as a portrait painter must be judged by works from late in his career (see §3 below). An exception is the portrait of a Lady with her Son (late 1660s; Dole, Mus. Mun.), an example of a genre—women with their children—in which he excelled. His skill in rendering embroidered materials, lace and flowers, together with a rich palette of strong blue, gold, red and black, make his portraits among the most elegant and festive of the 17th century. Although Mignard was considered a ‘Rubéniste’ by many of his contemporaries, he remained true to the facture of the Bolognese school: the strongly coloured, smooth surfaces, the opaque whiteness of the flesh tones and the detailed ornamentation of his portraits are also typical of his historical compositions throughout his career.
In spite of his success as a portrait painter, Mignard longed to paint large historical compositions, and his greatest wish was to show the knowledge of fresco technique that he had acquired in Italy: in 1662 he was commissioned by the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, to paint the cupola of the church of the Val-de-Grâce in Paris (completed 1666). The theme of the decoration is the celebration of the birth of her son, Louis XIV. With some 200 figures representing the French royal family surrounded by the celestial court of apostles, prophets, saints and angels hovering among the clouds, it is among the most ambitious Baroque decorative ensemble in Paris. Other Parisian decorative works of this period by Mignard included those in the house of the banker Barthélemy Hervart (c. 1606–76) executed in 1665 and frescoes (1669) in the baptismal chapel of St Eustache: neither scheme survives.
3. The works of old age, after c 1680.
In his later years, when he was famous and wealthy, Mignard was able to dedicate more of his time to large historical and religious compositions: Christ Carrying the Cross (1684; Paris, Louvre); Neptune Offering the Sea Empire to the King (1684; Compiègne, Château) and the Family of Darius before Alexander (1689; St Petersburg, Hermitage) all show the influence of his years in Rome. Mignard’s long-term rivalry with the Premier Peintre du Roi, Charles Le Brun, also a pupil of Vouet, had kept him away from major royal decorative commissions such as those at the château of Versailles. However, with the death of Le Brun’s protector, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, in 1683, the Premier Peintre’s power was diminished, and Mignard began to enjoy royal patronage: he executed the much admired ceiling decorations of the gallery of the château of Saint-Cloud in 1677/8 (destr. 1870; engraved by Jean-Baptiste de Poilly) and in 1685 the ceiling of the Petite Galerie at Versailles (destr.; engraved by Girard Audran). Tapestries executed after the decorations at Saint-Cloud (Pau, Mus. N. Château) give some idea of Mignard’s talent as a secular decorator.
A number of Mignard’s finest portraits date from the last phase of his career. They include signed and dated canvases of Louise-Renée de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (1682; London, N.P.G.), mistress of Charles II of England, with an African girl offering her the gifts of the maritime Empire in a large shell, and of the wife of the Minister of Marine, the Marquise de Seignelay as Thetis with her Two Sons (1691; London, N.G.), depicted against a background of the sea and a volcano. This was also the period of Mignard’s large and decorative group portraits, the Grand Dauphin and his Family (1687–8; Versailles, Château) and the drawing of the exiled English king James II with his Family (1694–5; Paris, Louvre).
The death of Le Brun in 1690 led to Mignard’s appointment as Premier Peintre, and, despite the fact that he had previously refused to join the Académie Royale, remaining loyal to the Académie de St Luc, he succeeded to Le Brun’s posts of professor, treasurer, rector and director. His Self-portrait (?1690; Paris, Louvre), presented by his daughter to the Académie Royale in 1686, shows him with the works he considered his most important: the oil sketch for the cupola of the Val-de-Grâce and a project for a triumphal column for the Place Royale (now Place des Vosges), Paris (unexecuted; drawing in Self-portrait). This portrait was, perhaps, his retort to the portrait of Charles Le Brun by Nicolas de Largillierre (1696; Paris, Louvre), which showed Le Brun among some of his famous works.
Although Mignard was nearly 80 in 1690, in the last few years of life he experienced a renewed burst of activity. He not only painted the portraits already mentioned, but also made designs (Paris, Louvre) for the decoration of the church of Les Invalides, Paris, painted two ceilings for the Petit Appartement du Roi at Versailles (fragments Fontainebleau, Château; Lille, Mus. B.-A., and elsewhere), and painted a series of religious pictures including Christ and the Woman of Samaria (1690; Paris, Louvre) and St Cecilia (1691; Paris, Louvre). His last work was his Self-portrait with St Luke Painting the Virgin (1695; Troyes, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.), an unusual subject in 17th-century French art, but one clearly designed to express his pride in his achievement. The Musée du Louvre, Paris, has a collection of over 300 of his drawings.
Lada Nikolenko. "Mignard." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T057896pg2 (accessed March 7, 2012).
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