Jean De Beaumetz

1335 – 1396

Franco-Flemish painter. He was first recorded living in Arras, where by 1360 he had married and was receiving rents. In June 1361 Beaumetz was granted residency in Valenciennes, and by August he had painted a statue (destroyed) that had been restored by the sculptor André Beauneveu for the aldermen's hall. In 1371 Beaumetz was in Paris carrying out unspecified works for Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. The Duke had sent him to Burgundy by 1375, and by April 1376 he was named ducal painter to replace Jean d'Arbois. Beaumetz first worked in Dijon on the decoration of the oratory and apartments of the palace and then on the adjacent Sainte Chapelle. He was in charge of decorative schemes in the Duke's Burgundian residences and of the embellishment of the charterhouse of Champmol. He was also responsible for the decoration of countless pennons and harnesses, for maintaining polychromy and for such tasks as painting on linen a large composition with the Virgin and saints, a ducal gift to the Carthusians of Lugny in 1378. During the years 1373-87 and 1390-91 Beaumetz was supervising work at the castles of Rouvres, Germolles and Argilly. For the last - his single most important project after Champmol - he probably supplied an important altarpiece.

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