Simon Vouet Allegory of Virtue ca. 1634 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
Simon Vouet Diana 1637 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
Simon Vouet Gaucher de Châtillon, Connétable ca. 1632-34 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
"In 1627 Vouet returned to Paris, called back to France by Louis XIII. He was named First Painter to the King, lodged in the Louvre, and flooded with major commissions, a great many of which have been destroyed, lost, or dismantled and dispersed. For the queen mother, Marie de' Medici, Vouet worked on the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace (lost), and later he was employed by Anne of Austria. For the king, he made tapestry cartoons, drew pastel portraits of the court, and contributed to the decoration of royal residences. . . . Cardinal Richelieu, a prodigious patron, engaged Vouet's services in 1632 to contribute to the Gallery of Illustrious Men [one example directly above] in the Palais Cardinal and to decorate his residences outside Paris (mostly destroyed). . . . Vouet was perpetually employed in the townhouses and country châteaux of the ministry, the aristocracy, and other men of wealth. Little survives from such ambitious projects. . . . Vouet was the dominant figure in French painting in the 1630s and into the early 1640s. He developed a novel palette of high-key colors and daring juxtapositions of hue, especially lemon yellow and gold, chilly hues, and hot oranges. He devised a distinctive female type, ample and mild with delicate, even features and fine pointed noses. His mastery of drawing the human figure enabled him to render difficult foreshortenings seemingly without effort. With its indeterminate perspective and spatial flexibility, Vouet's mode was perfectly adapted for the kind of interior he was repeatedly called upon to decorate, in which individual panels and canvases were incorporated into an ornamental enframement."
– from the artist's biography in the Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Simon Vouet Muses Urania and Calliope ca. 1634 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Simon Vouet Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence ca. 1630-40 oil on panel Musée du Louvre |
Simon Vouet Euterpe, Muse of Lyric Poetry and Music ca. 1630-40 oil on panel private collection |
Simon Vouet Lot and his Daughters 1633 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg |
Simon Vouet Allegory of Wealth 1630-35 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
Simon Vouet Aeneas and Anchises fleeing Troy ca. 1635 oil on canvas San Diego Museum of Art |
Simon Vouet Entombment ca. 1635-38 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
Simon Vouet St Mary Magdalene ca. 1630 oil on canvas Cleveland Museum of Art |
Simon Vouet Madonna and Child 1633 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Simon Vouet Creusa carrying the Gods of Troy ca. 1635 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Simon Vouet Portrait of Young Woman with Pearl Earrings ca. 1632-35 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |