Click on each title to browse Jean Fouquet Oil Painting.
We offer custom hand painted oil on canvas reproductions services
Jean Fouquet Born about 1415, Died before 1481
On a visit to Rome around 1445, Jean Fouquet caused a great sensation when he painted a portrait of Pope
Eugenius IV on canvas rather than the more common wood support. The momentous result of this sojourn, where
he admired the work of the most innovative Italian artists of the 1400s, was that Fouquet introduced
concepts and techniques of Italian Renaissance art into French painting. His subsequent work in panel
painting, illuminated manuscripts, and portraiture earned him a reputation as the most important French
painter of the 1400s.Born in Tours, then the seat of the French monarchy, Fouquet worked for King Charles
VII and his court. At the time of Charles's death, the court commissioned him to make a colored death mask
for the king's public funeral, an indication of Fouquet's prominence. Under Charles's successor, King Louis
XI, Fouquet was appointed peintre du roy (Court Painter). In this exalted position, he supervised a large
workshop that produced paintings and manuscripts. He also worked on additional assignments such as painting
banners, building the scaffolding for a mystery play presented to celebrate the entrance of Louis XI into
Paris, and painting a canopy for the ceremonial entrance of Alfonso V of Portugal into Tours.