Philippe de Champaigne
Both Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674) and Adam Frans van der Meulen (1634–1690), though born at Brussels, resided in France the best part of their life, and are therefore generally classed with the painters of the French school, which accounts for their being represented at the Louvre in a manner which is quite out of proportion to their artistic significance. Still, if Philippe de Champaigne appears second-rate when compared with Rubens and Van Dyck, he is unquestionably the leading portrait painter of the contemporary French school in which he received his training. His powers were insufficient for the higher flights of imagination, and when his ambition led him to such compositions as Christ in the House of Simon (No. 1927) or Christ celebrating Easter with His Disciples (No. 1928), he was as dull and bombastic as most of his French contemporaries, whom he far excelled as a colourist. His portraits, on the other hand, are painted in a broad, honest, straightforward manner which has nothing in common with the monotonous pompousness of his age, as may be seen from the admirable group of two nuns in prayer, Mother Catherine Agnes Arnaud and Sister Catherine de Sainte-Suzanne (No. 1934). The younger of the two nuns represents the artist’s daughter, who was healed from paralysis by a miracle recorded by a Latin inscription on the wall. The twenty pictures from Philippe de Champaigne’s brush, which are actually on view, also include the fine group of the two architects François Mansard and Claude Perrault (No. 1944), bought in 1835 for the low price of £80; The Provost and Aldermen of Paris (No. 1945); and the signed and dated portrait of Robert Arnaud d’Andilly (No. 1939).