Charles-Antoine Coypel

Charles-Antoine Coypel (Jul 11, 1694 - Jun 15, 1752) was a French painter, art commentator, and playwright. He lived in Paris. He was the son of the artist Antoine Coypel and grandson of Noël Coypel. Charles-Antoine inherited his father’s design and painting duties as premier peintre du roi at the French court when his father died in 1722. He became premier peintre du roi and director of the Académie Royale in 1747. He received a number of commissions for paintings for the Palais de Versailles, and worked for Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress.

Coypel was an excellent tapestry designer. He designed tapestries for the Gobelins manufactory. His most successful tapestries were created from a series illustrating Don Quixote. Coypel was the first to illustrate Don Quixote in a sophisticated manner. These illustrations were painted as cartoons for tapestries, and were engraved and published in a deluxe folio in Paris in 1724. Coypel created twenty-eight small paintings for these tapestries over a number of years. Each of the paintings was used as the centrepiece of a larger area that was richly decorated with birds, small animals, and garlands of flowers on a pattered background.

He was a skilful politician and acceded to the highest positions of the artistic administration. He held the office of Guard of paintings and drawings of the Crown from 1722 to 1752.

As early as 1722 he had become the principal painter to the duke of Orléans, who led the reign for the still minor king, and moved into the Louvre. He also worked for Madame de Pompadour and the Polish court. In addition to the actual tables, Coypel designed motifs for the production of tapestries.

He was appointed First Painter to the King in 1747 and took an important part in the creation of the School of Protected Pupils of the Royal Academy. He was a skilful portraitist, although he was first a history painter.

He entered the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on August 31, 1715, and became its director in 1747. In addition to his work as a painter, Coypel appeared literally. He wrote two tragedies and some comedies, along with various poems. Coypel wrote about forty plays between 1717 and 1747. Only Les Folies de Cardenio (1720) was published. It was performed at the Tuileries in 1721. In La Poésie et la Peinture, an allegorical comedy in three acts, the artist compared the qualities of the two arts. The painter also produced works on the theme of the theater, including the portrait of Adrienne Lecouvreur in Cornélie (Paris, Comédie-Française).A series of 28 scenes from the history of Don Quixote has been made to his most successful work and between 1724 and 1794.

Works:
Museum of Fine Arts of Brest: Athalie interviews Joas, 1741, oil on canvas.
The painter produced a second version of this work, at the request of Louis XV in 1747. This work is preserved in Niort at the Bernard Museum of Agesci. The painter Clément-Louis-Marie-Anne Belle produced a copy of the work in 1764 for the Gobelins manufacture, in order to complete the Tenture of scenes of Opera, Tragedy and Comedy. It is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts of Chartres
Dijon, museum of fine arts of Dijon: The Adoration of the shepherds nocturne, 1745, oil on canvas, 157.8 x 103.5 cm
Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Atalide and Roxane or L'évanouissement d'Atalide, oil on canvas
Périgueux, museum of art and archeology of Périgord: Virgin and Child, oil on canvas
Paris, Comédie-Française: Adrienne Lecouvreur in Cornélie, oil on canvas
Paris, Saint-Merri Church: The Disciples of Emmaus, 1749, oil on canvas
Paris, musée du Louvre: Portrait of Philippe Coypel, 1732, oil on canvas, 75 × 61 cm
Castle of Versailles, small apartment of the queen: The Conversion of Saint Augustine, 1736, oil on canvas
St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum: The Wrath of Achilles, 1737, oil on canvas
https://hisour.com/artist/charles-antoine-coypel/