Jean Pillement

Bio

Born into a family of painters and a student of Daniel Sarrabat in Lyon, Jean Pillement began work at an early age for the Gobelins factory. By 1745 he had already embarked on the far-reaching series of travels which was to characterise his adult life. He became official painter not only to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France but also to the Polish King, Stanislas Auguste. During the artist’s sojourn in Vienna, his landscapes were in great demand by the Prince of Liechtenstein and also by a wide range of private clients in London, where he was an active and greatly popular member of the artistic society there.

Pillement achieved success not only as a landscape painter but was also one of the most influential decorators of the eighteenth century, his chinoiseries, arabesques and flower paintings providing elegant leitmotifs for furniture makers, tapestry weavers, and particularly in his old age, for the Manufacture de Soie et des Indiennes in Lyon, where he ended his distinguished career.