Charles de La Fosse

Charles de La Fosse (born June 15, 1636 in Paris , † December 13, 1716 ibid), also Delafosse and less often written in German de Lafosse, was a French painter .

Life

He entered the studio of the painter Charles Le Brun at a very young age and worked with him in the 1650s on the furnishings for the seminary of St-Sulpice de Paris and the Hotel Lambert .

On and on the recommendation of his teacher, he stayed in Italy from 1658 to 1663, where he studied the old masters in Rome until 1660 , then went to Parma and finally stayed for a long time in Venice , a city that had a lasting impact on him.

After his return, Le Brun employed him in the Palais des Tuileries (destroyed) and in the state room of the Palace of Versailles known as the “Grand Apartment” . In 1673 he was accepted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture with the “Rape of Prosperina” , which one year later appointed him professor and appointed him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Thanks to the support of Jules Hardouin-Mansart , de La Fosse became director of the academy in 1707 and its chancellor in 1715.

In the years 1689 to 1692 Lord Montagu called him to England and entrusted him with the furnishing of his palace in Bloomsbury Square (destroyed). At the end of his life he was a regular guest in the Paris hôtel particulier of the art collector Pierre Crozat and in his country house in Montmorency , where Antoine Watteau had also found acceptance through him and many other artists and art connoisseurs came together.

Charles de La Fosse died in 1716 at the age of 80 in Crozat's Paris city palace on rue Richelieu.

plant

His main works are the large ceiling paintings in the dome of the Invalides in Paris, depicting St. Louis, who presents Christ with his sword, and the wall painting in the vault above the high altar of the chapel at Versailles . The latter he created in four months. He also left behind numerous paintings created for churches, monasteries and palaces. The sometimes somewhat spread forms of his compositions and the almost non-existent study of nature outweigh the strong, shiny and often golden coloring of Venetian inspiration.

Factory selection

• Rape of Proserpine , around 1673, canvas, 145 × 180 cm, Paris, École des beaux-arts.
• Sacrifice of Iphigenia , around 1680, canvas, 278 × 262 cm.
• The raising of Jairi's little daughter , around 1680, canvas, 400 × 300 cm.
• Christ appears to the three Marys , around 1680, canvas, 86 × 65 cm.
• Apollo and Thetis , 1688, canvas, 168 × 149 cm, Versailles , Grand Trianon .
• Acis and Galatea , around 1690, canvas, 40 × 90 cm.
• Autumn , 1699, canvas, 260 × 170 cm.
• Rescuing the boy Moses from the floods of the Nile , 1701, canvas, 125 × 110 cm, Paris, Louvre

Murals:

• The Saint Louis consecrates Christ his weapons and arms , 1702-05, Mural, Paris, dome of Les Invalides.
• Resurrection of Christ , 1709, wall painting, Versailles, apse of the palace chapel .

literature

• "Dictionnaire de la peinture française Larousse", Paris, 1989, corrected edition 1991, Librairie Larousse, ISBN 2-03-740011-X .

Web links

Commons : Charles de La Fosse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files