E-auction 556-489403 - fme_601329 - FRENCH ROYAL ACADEMY OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE Médaille, Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture

FRENCH ROYAL ACADEMY OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, responsible for training future painters and sculptors, was established in 1648 on the initiative of a group of artists, including Philippe de Champaigne, Sébastien Bourdon, Charles Le Brun, or again Juste d'Egmont, supported by Mazarin himself, in order to counteract the influence of the guilds of Saint-Luc, and to formalize the distinction between the noble arts and the so-called "mechanical" arts. By favoring artists in this way, the Académie, established in the Louvre in 1656, immediately subscribed to the prestige policy of the monarchy and to the idea of the Grand Siècle, to which it provided numerous references. Its motto is "Libertas artibus restituta". Some famous names have written the greatness of the Academy: Jacques Firmin, Beauvarlet, Philippe de Champaigne, Jacques-Louis David, Nicolas de Largillière, Charles Le Brun, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Dominique Vivant Denon , etc. Recommended reading: VITET L., "The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture", Paris, 1861.