(Lyon, 24 May 1728 - Lyon, 26 April 1808) was a painter and designer, known for his exquisite and delicate landscapes, but whose importance lies primarily in the engravings done after his drawings, and their influence in spreading the Rococo style and particularly the taste for chinoiserie throughout Europe. Pillement had an unusually cosmopolitan career. In 1743, at the age of 15, he moved from Lyon to Paris where he was employed as an apprentice designer at the Gobelin factory. In 1745 he left for Spain, where he remained for 5 years. There he found employment in various cities as both a designer and painter. A landscape dated 1748 reveals rustic themes he was to repeat often: sun bathed shepherds leading their goats and sheep to a cascading stream, a water mill, rocky elevations covered in lush vegetation, and the poeticized relics of an ancient bridge. In 1750, at the age of 22, he moved to Lisbon, where he enjoyed continuing success. The lure of travel compelled him to decline an offer to become First Painter to King Joseph of Portugal ?, and in 1754 he left Lisbon for London. Pillement then spent eight years in England, fully exploiting the English taste for landscapes. There he was inspired by the paintings of, among others, Nicolaes Berchem. During this period he became acquainted with David Garrick, the famous actor, and his Austrian wife Eva Maria Weigel, who became avid collectors of his work. In 1763 Pillement then traveled to Vienna, where he was employed at the Imperial Court of Maria Theresa and Francis I. In 1765 he left Vienna for Warsaw, where his many projects included decorating the Royal Castle in Warsaw and the Ujazdowski Castle, his largest project, commissioned by Stanisław August Poniatowski. He also later worked in Saint Petersburg, the Piedmont, Milan, Rome and Venice. 1768-1780 Pillement again worked in France, where he was employed by Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon. 1780-1789 he was once again on the Iberian Peninsula, and in 1789 moved to Pezenas in the Languedoc. In 1800 he returned to Lyon, where he continued to paint while also designing for the silk industry and giving lessons in the Academy founded by Napoleon.  Related Paintings of Jean-Baptiste Pillement :. | Felspartie | Christ Handing the Keys to St. Peter (detail) a | vid fadrens gravar | a road in park | Gaulish Gladiator |
Related Artists:
George Cooke
English Engraver, 1781-1849 Born in Maryland, Cooke abandoned a fledgling career in business at an early age in order to become a full time artist. After several years of painting portraits for a living, Cooke left for what would become a five year tour of Europe. His time there was mostly spent learning from and copying the works of the Renaissance master artists, with many of Cooke's copies being sent back to the United States for show or sale. After returning to the U.S., Cooke and his wife spent the next decade traveling and working with no fixed home. His work took him throughout the Southern United States, where he primarily made his living painting portraits of both famous and ordinary people, and, by the 1840s, his portraits had earned him both financial success and regional fame.
Hans Eworth
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, active 1540-1573 Flemish painter, active in England. Jan Euworts was listed in 1540 as a freeman of the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp, but by 1545 he had moved to England, where until 1571 his name, spelt in a wide variety of ways (e.g. Eeworts, Eottes, Euertz, Evance, Eworts, Ewotes, Ewout, Ewoutsz., Eywooddes, Hawarde, Heward, Huett etc), appeared in numerous naturalization, tax and parish documents. About 35 paintings are generally attributed to him, consisting primarily of dated portraits of the English gentry and nobility. The majority are signed with the monogram HE, which led to their being attributed to the Flemish painter Lucas de Heere during the 18th and 19th centuries. Cust reattributed the paintings to Eworth on the basis of an inventory (1590) of the collection of John, 1st Baron Lumley, in which three monogrammed portraits were listed as being by Haunce Eworth
Elisabetta Sirani
(8 January 1638 -25 August 1665) was an Italian Baroque painter whose father was the painter Giovanni Andrea Sirani of the School of Bologna She was born in Bologna. By age 17 she was a full-fledged engraver and painter and had completed over ninety works. By the time she died at the young age of 27, she had added at least eighty more to her repertoire. Besides being an independent painter by the age of 19, Elisabetta Sirani also ran her family's workshop. When her father became incapacitated by gout, she was burdened with having to support her parents, her siblings and herself, entirely through her art. The stress created by such heavy responsibilities may have been the cause of her early death. It is estimated that in all she produced some 200 paintings, drawings, and etchings. She painted themes such as the Virgin and Child, self portraits, and many more. Elisabetta Sirani used dramatic light and great movement in her work, which classified it in the Baroque style. She painted many of her larger scale and heavy-themed works publicly and in front of large (and adoring) crowds of on-lookers. Sirani's portraits, mythological subjects, and especially her images of the Holy Family and the Virgin and Child, gained international fame.