Portrait of the Painter Louis Testelin

Charles Le Brun painted the portrait of his fellow artist Louis Testelin around 1650. Both men were founding members of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, established in 1648. Testelin served as the Academy's first secretary before his brother Henri succeeded him in that role.

Le Brun was the dominant figure in seventeenth-century French art, serving as court painter to Louis XIV and director of the Gobelins manufactory. This portrait is now held at the Louvre. The work demonstrates Le Brun's skill at capturing his colleagues in the nascent French academic tradition that would shape European art education for centuries.