Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer | |
|---|---|
 Studio ofGodfrey Kneller,Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer | |
| Born | (1636-01-12)12 January 1636 |
| Died | 20 February 1699(1699-02-20) (aged 63) London, England |
Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer[1] (12 January 1636 – 20 February 1699) was a Franco-Flemish painter who specialised in flower pieces. He was attached to theGobelins tapestry workshops and theBeauvais tapestry workshops, too, where he produced cartoons of fruit and flowers for the tapestry-weavers, and at Beauvais was one of three painters[2] who collaborated to produce cartoons for the suiteThe Emperor of China.
He was born atLille, but was inParis by 1650, where he was documented working on the decors of theHôtel Lambert. He was taken up byCharles Le Brun for decorative painting at theChâteau de Marly and at the Grand Dauphin's residence, theChâteau de Meudon. He was received at theAcadémie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1665 with a piece of the genre that he made his specialty, a still life of flowers and fruit combined withobjets d'art.[3] His only appearance at theParis salon was in 1673, when four paintings of flowers were exhibited by "M. Baptiste".[4]
In 1690, he left France for England, to work on painting decorations forMontagu House, Bloomsbury, London, where he produced over fifty panels of fruit and flowers for overmantels andoverdoors, some of which have survived atBoughton House, Northamptonshire.[5] He died in London in 1699.
One of his sons,Antoine Monnoyer (died 1747), called 'Young Baptiste,' was a painter of flowers. Another of his sons, known as 'Frere Baptiste,' who went to Rome and became a Dominican friar, and a painter.[6]
His suites of engravings, most notablyLe Livre de toutes sortes de fleurs d'après nature[7] show flowers withbotanical accuracy and served decorative designers for decades. Monnoyer's engravings of flower pieces were being used by tapestry makers, such as at theSoho tapestry works in London, long after his death.[8] In the twentieth century the poetWallace Stevens invoked Monnoyer's titleLivre de toutes sortes de fleurs d'après nature in his philosophical poem "Esthéthique du Mal", whose centrality to Stevens' work was stressed byHarold Bloom;[9] for Stevens "all sorts of flowers" epitomized the anodyne and sentimental poem, attempting to address and assuage "all sorts of misfortune".[10]
Graves, Robert Edmund (1894)."Monnoyer, Jean Baptiste" . InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 38. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
