Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre

Bio

Pierre was overshadowed by Boucher during his lifetime and his work has only recently been rehabilitated. He studied first with Natoire, winning the Grand Prix in 1734 at the age of twenty. In Rome from 1735 to 1740, little is known of his work during this time when the Academy was under the direction first of Vleughels and then De Troy. Received into the Academy in 1742 with Diomedes Slain by Hercules (Montpellier), he made his Salon debut with Psyche, abandoned by Cupid, consoled by Nymphs in 1741, presenting works at the succeeding Salons (1742 – 1751), and, after a break, at those of 1757, 1761 and 1769. He succeeded Boucher as First Painter of the King in 1770 and assumed the Directorship of the Academy, after which he virtually abandoned painting. His early history paintings such as the Death of Harmonia (New York, Metropolitan), exhibit a brilliant technique and mastery of composition which is absent in some of his later works. His delicate palette, always a little colder than Boucher’s, and more controlled style were particularly suited to the large-scale religious works which can be counted as among his most notable achievements. The decorative bambochades which he painted from the mid-1740’s had considerable success with the public but did not endear him to the critics. His difficult personality made him unpopular with his contemporaries but as First Painter he was nevertheless, with the Count d’Angivillier, the most influential figure in French artistic life during the reign of Louis XVI.