Louis Caravaque, a French portrait painter, was a native of Gascony. He went to Russia, and in 1716 painted at Astrakhan the portrait of Peter the Great, which has been engraved by Massard and by Langlois. He again painted the Czar in 1723, and subsequently the Empresses Anne and Elizabeth. He died in Russia in 1752.  Related Paintings of Louis Caravaque :. | Portrait of Empress Anna Ioannovna | Portrait of a boy. Was att. as Peter III or Peter II's portrait, possibly Elizabeth in men's dress | Portrait of Natalia Romanov | Portrait of Natalia Romanov | Portrait of Catherine I of Russia |
Related Artists:
Alexandre Gabriel Decamps
French Romantic Painter, 1803-1860. Studied under Abel de Pujol. Specializes in Orientalism. Studied under Abel de Pujol. Specializes in Orientalism. French genre and historical painter, engraver, and lithographer. First known for his caricatures and illustrations, he turned to painting in thick impasto and strong color. One of his richest sources was the Middle East, which he depicted in vivid detail.
David van der Plas
David van der Plas (1647-1704), was a Dutch Golden Age portrait painter. David van der Plas became famous as a portrait painter, and his most illustrious patron was Cornelis Tromp. In 1684 he married Cornelia van der Gon of Haarlem, the daughter of the castellan (kastelein) of the Oude Doelen, the meeting quarters of the Haarlem schutterij (the building currently houses the Stadsbibliotheek Haarlem). David van der Plas' brother-in-law was the painter Govert van der Leeuw and his pupil was Jacob Appel. His wife Cornelia van der Gon was the rich heiress of the Amsterdam architect Adriaan Dortsman (ca. 1636-1682), who designed the round Lutheran church on the Singel. The marriage was childless, and Cornelia spent her time on her doll houses, which Dortsman had helped design and which Van der Plas helped decorate. The landscape painter Jan Wijnants also painted miniatures for these doll houses. Cornelia died in 1701, and after the death of Van der Plas, the doll houses were sold at auction to Sara Rothe, who used them to decorate her own doll houses.
Alphonse Mucha
1860-1939 Czech Alfons Maria Mucha was born in the town of Ivančice, Moravia (today's region of Czech Republic). His singing abilities allowed him to continue his education through high school in the Moravian capital of Brno, even though drawing had been his first love since childhood. He worked at decorative painting jobs in Moravia, mostly painting theatrical scenery, then in 1879 moved to Vienna to work for a leading Viennese theatrical design company, while informally furthering his artistic education. When a fire destroyed his employer's business in 1881 he returned to Moravia, doing freelance decorative and portrait painting. Count Karl Khuen of Mikulov hired Mucha to decorate Hrusovany Emmahof Castle with murals, and was impressed enough that he agreed to sponsor Mucha's formal training at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Poster of Maude Adams as Joan of Arc, 1909Mucha moved to Paris in 1887, and continued his studies at Academie Julian and Academie Colarossi while also producing magazine and advertising illustrations. Around Christmas 1894, Mucha happened to drop into a print shop where there was a sudden and unexpected demand for a new poster to advertise a play starring Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous actress in Paris, at the Theatre de la Renaissance. Mucha volunteered to produce a lithographed poster within two weeks, and on 1 January 1895, the advertisement for Gismonda appeared on the streets of the city. It was an overnight sensation and announced the new artistic style and its creator to the citizens of Paris. Bernhardt was so satisfied with the success of that first poster that she entered into a 6 years contract with Mucha. Mucha produced a flurry of paintings, posters, advertisements, and book illustrations, as well as designs for jewellery, carpets, wallpaper, and theatre sets in what was initially called the Mucha Style but became known as Art Nouveau. Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful healthy young women in flowing vaguely Neoclassical looking robes, often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed haloes behind the women's heads. In contrast with contemporary poster makers he used paler pastel colors. The 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris diffused the "Mucha style" internationally. He decorated the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavilion and collaborated in the Austrian one. His Art Nouveau style was often imitated. However, this was a style that Mucha attempted to distance himself from throughout his life; he insisted always that, rather than adhering to any fashionable stylistic form, his paintings came purely from within and Czech art. He declared that art existed only to communicate a spiritual message, and nothing more; hence his frustration at the fame he gained through commercial art, when he wanted always to concentrate on more lofty projects that would ennoble art and his birthplace.