Jean Antoine Laurent

Jean Antoine Laurent was a French miniaturist and painter.

Biography
He was born in Baccarat, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France into a family of artists. He studied in Nancy, where he was a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Claudot and Jean-Francois Durand. He settled in Paris in 1785 and exhibited in the Salon from 1791 to 1831 obtaining a first class medal in 1808. He lived first in 487, rue Saint Nicaise and then in rue Duphot and in 30 place du Carrousel. In his long career he tried his hand non only as miniaturist but also as history and genre painter. He married Marie Antoinette Gueliot and had four children. Pauline was the elder, Emma was a miniaturist, Paul studied in the Ecole Polytechnique but was expelled in 1814, Jules was a sculptor and director of Epinal Museum. Lauronce refused to work for the House of Bourbon and so was granted protection by Empress Josephine and Queen Hortense de Beauharnais. He was a teacher of drawing in the Ecole forestiere of Nancy, director of the drawing school of Epinal, President of the Societe Academique des Enfants d'Apollon and director of the Epinal Museum, town where he lived in 90, rue de Bourbon. In that period he obtained the Legion of Honour. In 1826 he published a text on lithography. He was one of the few French miniaturists who painted on large surfaces of ivory or parchment. In fact among his subjects there were also equestrian portraits. He painted also with the technique of fixé sous verre, in which the likeness is painted in oils on fine silk fabric and then glued to the inside of a bombé glass.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2024