Joseph Vivien

1657 – 1734

French painter and pastellist, active in Germany. He trained in Paris in 1672 with the painter François Bonnemers (1638-1689), also attending the Académie Royale, where his oil painting the Punishment of Adam and Eve (untraced) won a second prize in 1678. Only in 1698 was he received (reçu) at the Académie, as a pastellist, on presentation of portraits of the sculptor François Girardon and of the architect Robert de Cotte (both Paris, Louvre). Having been commissioned to execute a pastel Self-portrait (Florence, Uffizi) by Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, in 1699, the following year he was appointed the Elector's principal court painter. He henceforth divided his time between Paris, the Elector's courts at Brussels and Munich, and the court of Maximilian Emanuel's son, Clemens August, Elector of Cologne, at Bonn.

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