Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet (1590–1649) was born in Paris, the son of the painter Laurent Vouet, who taught him the rudiments of his art. He began as a portraitist, travelling to England at fourteen and to Constantinople in 1611, then reached Venice in 1612 and was in Rome by 1614. He stayed in Italy until 1627, mostly in Rome, where he absorbed Caravaggio's lighting, Veronese's colour and the example of the Carracci, Guercino and Reni, and in 1624 was elected president of the Accademia di San Luca. Summoned home by Louis XIII in 1627 as Premier peintre du Roi, he ran a large workshop producing religious and mythological paintings, portraits, tapestry designs and decorative schemes for the crown and for Cardinal Richelieu. He was the leading artist in Paris of his day and is credited with bringing the Italian Baroque to France, and his studio trained the next generation of French painters, Charles Le Brun and Eustache Le Sueur among them. Most of his great decorative ensembles were destroyed during the Revolution. Here: Annunciation and Presentation in the Temple.