Antoine Coypel

Antoine Coypel was a leading French painter at the turn of the eighteenth century, and his work marks the shift from the grand, stern style of Louis XIV’s court to something lighter and warmer. His pictures are theatrical, with expressive faces and gestures, rich colour and a debt to Rubens.

He was born in Paris in 1661, the son of the painter Noël Coypel, and went with his father to Rome as a boy. He worked for the Duke of Orléans, painting the Aeneas gallery of the Palais-Royal, and in 1708 painted the ceiling of the royal chapel at Versailles. He was director of the Académie from 1714, became First Painter to the King in 1716 and was ennobled in 1717.

His Swooning of Esther, from 1704, is in the Louvre, as is his laughing Democritus of 1692. In Esther, look at how the queen’s collapse is staged like a moment in a play. He died in Paris in 1722.