Louis-Gabriel Blanchet
1705 – 1772
Louis-Gabriel Blanchet was French painter, active in Rome. He was principally known as a portrait painter.
He was born in Paris, 1705. Louis-Gabriel Blanchet won second place in the Prix de Rome competition in 1727 and thereafter settled in Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Nicolas Vleughels, Director of the Académie de France, and the Duc de Saint-Aignan, who at that time was French Ambassador to the Holy See.
In 1752 Blanchet painted the Vision of Constantine (Paris, Louvre), a copy of Giulio Romano’s fresco in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. His portrait of Tolozan de Montfort is a fine example of his elegant, rather nervous style and his distinctive use of color.
In the same year Blanchet executed a portrait of the contemporary painter Johann Mandelberg. Other surviving works of his include St Paul, signed and dated 1757; Avignon, Museum Calvet and his full-length portrait of P. P. Lesueur and E. Jacquier (1772; Nantes, Mus. B.-A.).
His last documented work was an allegory of Painting and Sculpture (1762; untraced). His work as a portrait painter has been compared with that of his Roman contemporary Pompeo Girolamo Batoni.
Louis-Gabriel Blanchet died in Rome in 1772.
