Eustache Le Sueur

Baroque painter Eustache Le Sueur (1616-1655) was one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting and a leading exponent of Parisian Atticism. Born in Paris to a wood turner and sculptor, he never left the city in his 38 years. He trained under Simon Vouet, absorbing his teacher's decorative style before developing a more restrained, classical manner influenced by Raphael and Poussin. Critics called him "the French Raphael" for his graceful compositions and harmonious color.

Le Sueur's reputation was established by his series of 22 paintings on the life of Saint Bruno (1645-1648) for the Paris Carthusians, now at the Louvre. He was chosen to decorate the Hôtel Lambert on the Île Saint-Louis, one of the most prestigious commissions in Paris. In 1648, he became a founding member and first professor of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Contemporary accounts describe him as disliking "immoral excesses" and loving "order, simplicity and seclusion." He died at just 37, supposedly from a broken heart after his wife's death. His works influenced French academic painting for generations, and his Saint Bruno cycle remains a masterpiece of 17th-century French art.