Jean-Michel Picart

Jean-Michel Picart or Jean-Michel Picard (Antwerp, c. 1600 – Paris, 24 November 1682) was a Flemish still life painter and art dealer active in France. After training in Antwerp, he moved to Paris where he had a brilliant career and became court painter to King Louis XIV. He is known for his flower and fruit still lifes. He was together with Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer one of the most successful still life painters in France in his time. As an art dealer he was a link between Antwerp dealers and the Paris market.

Life Little is known about the life of the artist. He was likely born in Antwerp around the year 1600.

Jean-Michel Picart left Antwerp and moved to Paris where he is recorded from the 1630s. He was an active member of the community of painters of Flemish origin who had settled in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He was active as a flower painter and enjoyed the patronage of Gaston Henri de Bourbon, the nominal bishop of Metz and later Duke of Verneuil. By 1638, Picart had become one of the most prominent figures among the community of still life painters from Flanders and Holland who had settled in Paris. In 1640, Picart was admitted to the Académie de Saint-Luc (Academy of Saint Luke), the guild of painters and sculptors of Paris. Picart was renowned for his activity as a merchant of original works and copies. He dealt in Dutch and Flemish landscapes, hunting scenes by Frans Snyders and small religious compositions. Correspondence between the two art dealers shows that Picart would inform Musson of prevailing preferences in the Paris art market and Musson would then organise for the making of the pictures that fit with those preferences. His last marriage with Marie Richard contracted in 1645 lasted for 35 years and produced four daughters and two sons. The documents regarding his civil status on the occasion of his marriages or those of his relatives give an insight into the life of the artist. Starting from his second marriage, he built strong relationships with the local stonecutters, jewellers and engravers of fine stones. He was the father-in-law of the portraitist Jacques d'Agar, who had studied with the Flemish painter Jacob Ferdinand Voet and later became portrait painter to the court of Denmark. Another daughter married the miniature painter Sylvain Bonnet in 1672. The Flemish painter Philippe de Champaigne and the French flower painter Nicolas Baudesson as well as magistrates and officers appear in various notarial deeds relating to Picart. This confirms the social rise of the artist. Picart painted still lifes for the king of which at least seven were on display at the Palace of Versailles and another eight at the king's smaller retreat Château de Marly. According to Curt Benedict, it was the Still life of flowers in a glass vase of the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, which allowed the French art historian Michel Faré to attribute a number of works to Picart. His early work such as the Fruit still life with grapes and peaches (c. 1635, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) follows an archaic type. Later he was able to merge his Flemish realism with its painstaking attention to detail with the demand at the court of Louis XIV for more extravagant, lush floral arrangements.

The artist was particularly skilled in creating subtly different harmonics, a feature that would mark French still-life painting. His ability to render every detail meticulously can be seen in the Still life with spring flowers on a ledge (early 1650s, at Dorotheum Vienna on 25 April 2017, lot 93) in which he carefully depicts the defects on the fruit peel as well as the withering leaves and the rich cloth covering the table and the curtains in the background. Some art historians have interpreted some of the images in these flower pieces (such as withering flowers, butterflies) as symbols for the transience of life.