Portrait Of A Young Woman Circa 1680, Pierre Mignard

Portrait of a young woman around 1680 by a painter from Pierre Mignard's entourage.
Oil on canvas in very good condition in its carved wooden frame from the Louis XIV period.
Dimensions with the frame 46x55 cm.

Pierre Mignard was born in Troyes on November 17, 1612 in a family of artisans (hatter, braid maker, hosier). His grandfather, Pantaléon Mignard, was a gunsmith. He is the brother of the painter Nicolas Mignard (1606-1668). Like that of his brother, his training took place first in his hometown, then in Bourges with the painter Jean Boucher (1575-1632) and in Fontainebleau. The Château de Fontainebleau, a royal residence, possessed artistic treasures that François 1er (1494-1547) had had made by Italian artists and which constituted models for the painters of the 17th century. Mignard having decorated the chapel of the Château de Coubert-en-Brie for Nicolas de l’Hospital, known as Marshal de Vitry (1581-1644), the latter took it to Paris. From 1630, he became a student of the painters Simon Vouet (1590-1649), Eustache Le Sueur (1616-1655) and Charles-Alphonse Du Fresnoy (1611-1668).
In 1636, Pierre Mignard left for Rome, where he remained for more than twenty years. While Simon Vouet belonged to the Baroque movement, the influence of Nicolas Poussin, who lived in Rome, oriented Mignard towards the classicism that Annibale Carrache had perpetuated in the eternal city. Mignard quickly found success with numerous portraits and religious scenes. His Raphaelian Virgins, which became famous throughout Europe, were nicknamed the Mignardes.
Louis XIV could not do without an artist of this stature. He recalled the painter to Paris in 1658. On the way back, Pierre Mignard stopped in Avignon where his Brother Nicolas had settled. Nicolas' wife had inherited real estate including a Jeu de Paume room, adjoining the family home, which could occasionally be used as a theater. Molière and his troupe stayed in Avignon several times in the 1650s and used this room for their theatrical performances. A friendship was born between the man of the theater and the two painters who would each paint Molière's portrait. In Paris, Pierre Mignard's success was immediate. The royal family and the entire aristocracy commissioned portraits from him. The great decorations of palaces and churches also followed one after the other: the dome of the church of Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grâce in Paris (1663), the decoration of a chapel of the church of Saint-Eustache in Paris (1667-70) and from 1677, two salons and the Apollo gallery of the castle of Saint-Cloud (destroyed during the Franco-German war of 1870) belonging to the king's brother, Philippe d'Orléans (1640-1701) and which would serve as a model for the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
During all these years in Paris, Mignard found himself in competition with Charles Le Brun (1619-1690). Colbert was unable to bring the two men together and Mignard refused to enter the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, of which Le Brun was the director. But in 1787, Mignard was ennobled by Louis XIV and on the death of Le Brun in 1690, he was appointed First Painter to the King and entered the Academy as director. Pierre Mignard died in Paris on May 30, 1695 at the age of 82. A monumental tomb was reserved for him at the Jacobin convent, but destroyed during the Revolution.