Jean Louis Voille

1744 – 1804

French painter. He was born in Paris and raised in a family of jewelers. He was a student of François-Hubert Drouais at the Académie Royale. From the early 1770s Voille worked in Russia. He originally came to St. Petersburg as an actor, although he was already a competent portraitist. In about 1780 he became the court painter of the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (future Emperor Paul I of Russia). He painted several portraits of Paul, his wife Maria Fyodorovna, and other members of the Russian nobility, becoming one of the leading portraitists of the day in St. Petersburg. In 1795, Voille returned to France where he exhibited his works at the Paris Salon. Little is known about his later life.

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