Pierre Mignard
Troyes, 1612-Paris, 1695
Portrait of a Lady as Venus with Cupid, 1680s
Oil on canvas.
After training in France, including a period with Vouet, Mignard worked in Rome for more than twenty years. Out of those experiences he developed a very refined if fairly generic classicism. Returning to Paris in 1657, he enjoyed great success and offered the principal alternative to Charles Le Brun�s more robust and rhetorical official style. Mignard�s portraits were celebrated for the kind of contrivance and elegance that are evident in this picture. Anticipating later criticism, however, Poussin found his likeness, �cold, crushed, too done-up, and neither fluency nor discipline.�