Pierre Mignard

Painter, born in Troyes, NEC France. He studied in Bourges and under Simon Vouet. During 1636–57 he worked in Rome, where his style was influenced by Poussin and by Italian classicism. He is best remembered as a successful court portraitist, appointed ‘premier peintre’ by Louis XIV, and director and chancellor of the Académie.

Pierre Mignard (1610—1695), called "Le Romain" to distinguish him from his brother Nicolas, was a French painter.

In 1630 he left the studio of Simon Vouet for Italy, where he spent twenty-two years, and made a reputation which brought him a summons to Paris. Successful with his portrait of the king, and in favour with the court, Mignard pitted himself against Le Brun, declined to enter the Academy of which he was the head, and made himself the centre of opposition to its authority. The history of this struggle is most important, because it was identical, as long as it lasted, with that between the old gilds of France and the new body which Colbert, for political reasons, was determined to support.

Shut out, in spite of the deserved success of his decorations of the cupola of Val de Grace (1664), from any great share in those public works, the control of which was the attribute of the new Academy, Mignard was chiefly active in portraiture.

With the death of Le Brun (1690) the situation changed.