Nicolas Lancret

Painter, born in Paris, France. He studied at the Académie de Peinture, and under Claude Gillot. He owed his popularity to his depictions of ‘fêtes galantes’, paintings of balls, fairs, and village weddings, which show the influence of Watteau. His works include L'Hiver and Le Moulinet. In 1719 he was elected to the Académie.

Nicolas Lancret (January 22, 1690 - September 14, 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.

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;

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The number of his paintings (of which over eighty have been engraved) is immense; 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.

See d'Argenville, Vies des peintres;

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.