Louise Moillon
French painter
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Biography
Louise Moillon (1609–1696) was a French painter in the Baroque era. She became known as one of the best still life painters during her time. Her work was purchased by King Charles I of England, as well as the French nobility.
Early life
Moillon was born into a strict Calvinist family in Paris in 1609. She was one of seven children; her father, Nicolas, was a landscape and portrait painter and an art dealer, and her mother was Marie Gilbert. Moillon learned to paint from her father, however he died when she was 10 years old. The following year, Moillon's mother married another painter and art dealer, Francois Garnier. Garnier gave Moillon art lessons and continued her art education.
Moillon's family lived in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood of Paris, an area with many Protestant refugees from the Netherlands, including artists. These artists introduced Moillon to their traditional style of still life painting, which influenced the development of her particular style.
Paintings
Fruit basket with asparagus, 1630.
Moillon specialised in still-life paintings, usually of fruit or flowers, with an occasional human figure. Her work is characterised by stillness and acute detail, such as the texture of exotic fruit.
The majority of her work was done in the 1630s, before her marriage in 1640 to wealthy timber merchant Etienne Girardot de Chancourt. In 1641, however, she painted a large composition of fruit and flowers in collaboration with Pieter van Boekel (Pierre van Boucle) and Jacques Linard. Her last dated work is from 1674.
Approximately forty of her paintings survive today, most of which are signed Louyse Moillon. Four still-life paintings, once thought to be Moillon's, have now been reattributed to Osias Beert, a Flemish still life artist.
Mollion died of heart failure in 1696.