Antoine Coypel

Antoine Coypel (Apr 11, 1661 - Jan 7, 1722) was a history painter, the more famous son of the French painter Noël Coypel.
His great work of decoration was the ceiling of the Royal chapel at Versailles, in the manner of the Roman Baroque. He also carried out large-scale paintings illustrating themes of the Aeneid for the Palais-Royal.

Antoine Coypel was born in Paris. He studied under his father, with whom he spent four years at Rome. At the age of eighteen he was admitted into the Académie de peinture et de sculpture, of which he became professor and rector in 1707, and director in 1714. In 1716 he was appointed king's painter, and he was ennobled in the following year.

Antoine Coypel is the son of Noël Coypel, with whom he was formed. At the age of 12, he accompanied his father to Rome, where he headed the Académie de France from 1673 to 1675, and completed his training there, revealing himself as a very precocious pupil with great talent. In Rome, he studied the art of the great masters of the Renaissance and the ancient statuary. He was strongly influenced by the local baroque school and by the art of Correggio, which he admired on his way back to France, where he received a classical literary training at the college of Harcourt. His first paintings, lost but some of which are known by engravings, testify to a virtuosity quite exceptional for a painter who is not yet twenty years old. On October 23, 1681, at the age of twenty, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, with an Allegory of the victories of Louis XIV (Montpellier, Fabre Museum) Mastered where the figures are placed in clusters, adopting very expressive attitudes inspired by Charles Le Brun, and where the bright colors are combined with the finesse of the drawing.

Antoine Coypel received a careful literary education, the effects of which appear in his works; but the graceful imagination displayed by his pictures is marred by the fact that he was not superior to the artificial taste of his age. He was a clever etcher, and engraved several of his own works. His Discours prononcés dans les conferences de 1'Academie royale de Peinture, etc.; first appeared in 1721.

He was then successful and received numerous commissions for the royal residences of Marly, Versailles and Meudon. He became the official painter of the house of Orleans in 16858. He was then sensitive to the art of Rubens, an influence that is reflected in his portrait of Democritus. At the turn of the century he painted famous works, Bacchus and Ariadne and the Triumph of Galatea, now lost but copied many times, which will have a lasting influence on eighteenth-century art and its taste for light mythological subjects And friendly. Chosen to make drawings of the history of Louis XIV in 1691, director of paintings and drawings of the crown in 1710, associated with the Academy of inscriptions in 1701, appointed director of the Academy in 1714 then rector, First painter of the King in 1716 and ennobled in 1717.

His major work is the decoration of the ceiling of the chapel of the Château de Versailles (1716), made in a Baroque style that recalls the Roman examples that the painter admired in his youth, especially Baciccio. He also produced, from 1714 to 1717, large paintings on the theme of the Aeneid, for the walls of the Palais-Royal in Paris. Many are now in the Louvre, while Aeneas and Anchises, Aeneas and Achates appearing in Dido and the Death of Dido are at the Fabre Museum.

Antoine Coypel also worked closely with several engravers on the interpretation of his work: Charles and Louis Simonneau, Girard Audran, Louis Desplaces, Gaspard Duchange, and others. He provided some preparatory drawings for illustration.

He published, in 1721, Discourses on his art. He died a year later.

His son Charles-Antoine and his half-brother Noël Nicolas were also painters. His brother-in-law is the sculptor François Dumont.

Works:
The Alliance of Bacchus and Cupid, c. 1702, oil on canvas, 86 × 94 cm, Dallas, art museum;
The Sacrifice of the daughter of Jephté, 1695-1697, oil on canvas, 147 x 216 cm, Dijon, Museum of Fine Arts of Dijon;
The Wrath of Achilles, c. 1718, oil on canvas, 351 x 705 cm, Dijon, Museum of Fine Arts of Dijon;
Judith, oil on wood, 22.9 x 18.7 cm, Dijon, Museum of Fine Arts of Dijon;
Gaston de Foix armed for the battle (copy after Giorgione), oil on wood, 22.8 x 17.8 cm, Dijon, museum of fine arts of Dijon;
Jesus served by the Angels, Châlons-en-Champagne, Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology;
Le Repos de Diane, Épinal, departmental museum of ancient and contemporary art;
The Death of Dido, between 1714 and 1717, Montpellier, Fabre museum
Eliezer and Rebecca, 1701, oil on canvas, 125 × 106 cm, Paris, Louvre Museum;
Portrait of Democritus, 1692, oil on canvas, 69 × 57 cm, Paris, Louvre Museum;
The Fading of Esther, circa 1704, oil on canvas, 105 × 137 cm, Paris, musée du Louvre;
Athalie expelled from the temple, before 1697, Paris, musée du Louvre.

Portrait of Democritus (1692), Paris, museum of the Louvre.
Eliezer and Rebecca (1701), Paris, museum of the Louvre.
The Alliance of Bacchus and Cupid (circa 1702) Dallas Museum of Art, oil on canvas 86 x 94 cm
The Fading of Esther (circa 1704), Paris, musée du Louvre.
God the Father Almighty (circa 1715), detail of the ceiling of the royal chapel of the castle of Versailles.
https://hisour.com/artist/antoine-coypel/