(2 February 1616 - 8 May 1671) was a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the church of Notre Dame. The Finding of Moses, c. 1650 (National Gallery of Art, Washington)Bourdon was born in Montpellier, France, the son of a Protestant painter on glass. He was apprenticed to a painter in Paris. In spite of his poverty he managed to get to Rome in 1636; there he studied the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain and Caravaggio among his eclectic selection of models, until he was forced to flee in 1638, to escape denunciation by the Inquisition for his Protestant faith. Bourdon's facility rendered him adept at portraiture, whether in a dashing Rubens manner or in intimate, sympathetic bust-length or half-length portraits isolated against plain backgrounds that set a formula for middle-class portraiture for the rest of the century, landscapes in the manner of Gaspar Dughet or cappricci of ruins, mythological "history painting" like other members of Poussin's circle or the genre subjects of the Dutch Bamboccianti who were working in Rome. His eclectic range of styles have given art historians exercise in tracing his adaptation of his models, while the lack of an immediately recognizable "Bourdon style" has somewhat dampened public appreciation. In 1652 Christina of Sweden made him her first court painter. Bourdon spent most of his working career outside France, where, though he was a founding member of the Academie de peinture et de sculpture (1648), he was for long largely dismissed as a pasticheur, a situation partly rebalanced by a comprehensive exhibition in 2000 of his work at the Musee Fabre, where the collection includes a fine Lamentation painted in the last years of his life. His success required the establishment of an extensive atelier, where, among his other pupils worked Nicolas-Pierre Loir and Pierre Mosnier. He died in Paris in 1671.  Related Paintings of Sebastien Bourdon :. | Abraham and three angels | Le crucifiement de Saint Pierre | Queen Christina of Sweden on Horseback | King Charles X Gustav of Sweden | Sacrifice of Noah |
Related Artists:
Paul A.Seifert
German-born American painter b.c.1840-46 d.1921
Luca Giordano
1632-1705 Italian Luca Giordano Gallery Charles II of Spain towards 1687 invited him over to Madrid, where he remained for 10 years (1692-1702). In Spain, he produced works for the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Buen Retiro palace, El Escorial, Toledo, and other sites. Giordano was popular at the Spanish court, and the king granted him title as a "caballero". One anecdote of Giordano's speed at painting is that, he was once asked by the Queen of Spain what his wife looked like. On the spot, he painted his wife into the picture before him for the Queen. In Spain he executed numerous works, continuing in the Escorial the series commenced by Cambiasi, and painting frescoes of the Triumphs of the Church, the Genealogy and Life of the Madonna, the stories of Moses, Gideon, David and the Celebrated Women of Scripture, all works of large dimensions. His Dream of Solomon (1693, now at Prado) dates from this period. His pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, assisted him in Spain. In Madrid he worked more in oil-colour, a Nativity there being one of his best productions.
Hippolyte Lazerges
1817-1887