Nicolas de Largillière

Nicolas de Largillière was a French painter and draughtsman, baptised in Paris on 10 October 1656 and dying on 20 March 1746. The son of a merchant hatmaker, he moved with his family to Antwerp at about the age of three and was apprenticed to the Flemish painter Anton Goubau. At eighteen he went to England, where Sir Peter Lely befriended and employed him for four years at Windsor. Charles II wished to keep him in royal service, but he left for Paris after the Rye House Plot. From 1733 until 1735 he was director of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture.