Philippe de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne painted portraits and religious works with a sober, dignified clarity. His sitters are calm and serious, and his colour is cool and exact. He painted Cardinal Richelieu eleven times and was said to be the only artist allowed to show him in full cardinal’s robes.

He was born in Brussels in 1602, trained there under the landscape painter Jacques Fouquier and moved to Paris in 1621. He became painter to the Queen Mother in 1628, took French nationality and was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648. He decorated churches and the Sorbonne dome for Richelieu. In later life he was close to the austere Jansenists of Port-Royal, and his style grew even plainer. His Ex-Voto of 1662, showing his daughter’s recovery from illness, is in the Louvre. He died in Paris in 1674.

In his Cardinal Richelieu, look at the sweep of red silk against the cool background.