Guillaume Voiriot (20 November 1712 – 9 December 1799Catherine Voiriot, "Guillaume Voiriot (1712 – 1799)", ''Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français'' 2004 issue (2005) 111–57
p. 113
.) was a French

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

painter.

Biography

Voiriot was born in Paris into a family originally from Lorraine; his father was a sculptor. He travelled to Italy at his own expense from 1746 to 1749, studying at the French Academy in Rome. On his return he initially joined the Académie de Saint-Luc as a

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

list, then in 1759 was accepted into the

Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (; en, "Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture") was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abol ...

as a painter in oils,Neil Jeffares
"VOIRIOT, Guillaume: Paris 1712–1799"
''Dictionary of pastellists before 1800'', 2006, online ed. updated 20 March 2013. on the strength of portraits of the painters Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre and Jean-Marc Nattier.Madeleine Pinault-Sørensen, "À propos de relations et de correspondants de Cideville", ''Fontenelle et les Lumières'', ed. Sophie Audidière, ''Revue Fontenelle'' 5, Mont-Saint-Aignan: Publications des universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2008, , pp. 207–44
p. 214
. From then until 1771, he regularly exhibited portraits in the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

s. Voiriot was a friend of the architect Michel-Barthélemy Hazon; they had travelled to Rome together. Through him he made contacts in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

that led to a number of portraits. From 1770, he was an associate of the Academy of Arts in

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

. After 1771, he exhibited less often, concentrating on administrative tasks while continuing to paint family members, scientists, writers, actors and musicians. He died in Paris. The catalogue assembled by Catherine Voiriot lists 67 surviving works, 8 works known from

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

s, and 37 works mentioned by sources. Some of his portraits are unusually lively. Some of the lost works were early copies after Georges de La Tour; it is possible that some of those that survive are misattributed to de La Tour or others.

References

Bibliography

*Catherine Voiriot. "Voiriot Guillaume (1712–1799), portraitiste de l'Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture". In: ''Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art français'', 2004 issue (2005) 111–57

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Voiriot, Guillaume 18th-century French painters French male painters 1712 births 1799 deaths 18th-century French male artists