Louis-Gabriel Blanchet

1705 – 1772

French painter, active in Rome. He won second place in the Prix de Rome competition in 1727 and thereafter settled in Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Nicolas Vleughels, Director of the Académie de France, and the Duc de Saint-Aignan (1684-1776), who at that time was French Ambassador to the Holy See. A virtuoso portraitist, Blanchet painted many of the likenesses of the leading social and political figures in Rome of the day, In 1752 Blanchet painted the Vision of Constantine (Paris, Louvre), a copy of Giulio Romano's fresco in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. However, he was primarily a portrait painter: his portrait of Tolozan de Montfort (1756; Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts) is a fine example of his elegant, rather nervous style and his distinctive use of colour. Other surviving works of his include St. Paul (signed and dated 1757; Avignon, Musée Calvet) and his full-length portrait of Fathers Lesueur and Jacquier (1772; Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts). His last documented work was an allegory of Painting and Sculpture (1762; untraced). His work as a portrait painter has been compared with that of his Roman contemporary Pompeo Girolamo Batoni.

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