Artists
Nicolas Lancret
- Country:
- France
- Birth year:
- 1690
- Death year:
- 1743
Nicolas Lancret (1690 Paris-1743 Paris) spent his entire life as a respected and extremely productive painter in Paris, where he studied from about 1710 in the workshop of the history painter Pierre Dulin. After 1712 he studied with Claude Gillot, in whose studio he fell under the influence of an older co-pupil, Antoine Watteau. In 1719 Lancret was admitted to the Academie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture. After the death of Watteau in 1721 and Gillot in 1722, Lancret, along with Jean-Baptiste Pater, became the leading master of the style of painting known as fetes galantes. This new genre of pleasant landscapes and festive social gatherings represented a particular branch of French landscape painting during the Rococo era. Lancret also became known for his theater scenes, likewise painted in the manner of Watteau, which he executed with a great deal of charm without neglecting the realities of the stage. His works include Elegant Society in the Open Air, c. 1719, The Wallace Collection, London; Dance Amusement in the Castle Garden, c. 1735, Gemaldegallerie Alte Meister, Dresden; and Fastening Ice Skates, c. 1740, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.