Louis de Boullogne
Louis de Boullogne II (1657, Paris - 2 November 1733, Paris), known
as Boullogne fils, was a French painter.
The brother of Bon Boullogne,
their father Louis Boullogne feared rivalry between the two brothers
if Louis the younger also became a painter and so at first opposed
his wish to become a painter. However, his vocation finally won
through and every evening Louis crossed Paris to go with Bon to draw
at the Académie. Aged 18 he won the grand prix de peinture and left
for Rome in 1676, when his brother returned from there. He made
copies after The School of Athens, Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
and many other works by Raphael, from which the Gobelins made many
different tapisteries for the French king.
Returning through Lombardy and
Venice in 1680, Louis returned to Paris and soon won a great
reputation. In 1681 he was received as a member of the Académie :
his reception piece showed Augustus closing the doors to the temple
of Janus, after the battle of Actium. On 3 February 1688 he married
Marguerite Bacquet. In 1722, he was chosen to design the medals and
mottos for the Académie des inscriptions, receiving a new 1,000
livres pension and the ordre de Saint-Michel. In 1723, he was made
rector of the Académie ; in 1724, first painter to the king, with
letters patent of nobility for him and his descendents; and, in
1725, director of the Académie, offices he held until his death. His
students included Cornical, Galloche and Courtin. A strong supporter
of the Académie, Louis de Boullogne supported its students with his
lessons and his protection. He was the sworn enemy of the pochades
and bambochades, claiming that only those with great skill and a
fully-formed taste could be allowed to paint.
Louis Boullogne was buried at
Saint-Eustache, parish of his birth. He left a vast fortune to four
children he had had with Bacquet - two sons (the eldest was
councilor to the parlement de Metz, then conseiller d'État and an
intendant des finances et ordres du roi, and the younger receiver
general of finances for Tours) and two daughters (of which one
married Jean-Pierre Richarol, receiver general of finances, with
whom she had the painter Jean-Claude Richard, and the other became a
nun).
