François de Troy

Early life One of a family of artists, Troy was born in Toulouse, the son of Antoine Troy ( 28 July 1608 – 15 September 1684), a painter in that city, and Astrugue Bordes. François Troy and was the brother of the painter Jean de Troy (4 April 1638 – 25 June 1691). Troy was taught the basic skills of painting by his father, and perhaps also by the more worldly Antoine Durand.

François de Troy is not to be confused with his son, the portrait painter Jean-François de Troy (1679–1752), who studied under him.

Career At some time after 1662, Troy went to Paris to study portrait painting under Claude Lefèbvre (1633–1675) and Nicolas-Pierre Loir (1624–1679]. His clients included Madame de Montespan, her son by the king, Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine, and his wife Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon.

In the 1690s, Troy became the principal painter to the court of King James II in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he was the master of Alexis Simon Belle.

By the years 1698 to 1701, a period of peace between France and Great Britain, Jacobites could cross the English Channel carrying portraits of James Francis Edward Stuart and his sister Princess Louisa Maria. Troy was then James II's only court painter and needed the help of Belle, his best student, to produce the many portraits commissioned from him.

Troy was an engraver as well as a painter. Among his engravings is one of the funeral in 1683 of Maria Theresa of Austria, the wife of King Louis XIV. Lady Mary Herbert, Viscountess Montagu, as Diana, c. 1692 Jean de la Fontaine Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708) Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729) Princess Louisa Maria Stuart (1692–1712), about 1705 Portrait d'un couple en Vénus et Pâris, 1691, 150 cm by 120 cm, now in the Louvre

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