Biography

After studying and collaborating with the painter Charles Le Brun, Charles de La Fosse became the most sought after decorative painter in Paris. The son of a goldsmith, La Fosse spent five years studying in Italy, where he was exposed to Venetian color, made copies after Raphael, and studied the ceiling paintings of Pietro da Cortona. Within three years of returning to Paris, he began receiving royal commissions, and in 1673 became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. La Fosse painted mythological and Biblical scenes in the Louvre and the Tuileries, and spent nine years painting at Versailles. From 1689 through 1692 La Fosse created the painted decorations for the Duke of Montague's house in London. Thereafter he returned to Paris to decorate the Dome des Invalides with his painting of St. Louis Presenting His Arms to Christ. He continued to receive commissions for royal residences around Versailles, such as Moses Saved from the Waters, made for the Petits Appartements. La Fosse was a key influence on Antoine Watteau, whom he introduced into Paris' artistic and intellectual circles. La Fosse's robust, colorful painting style was an important precursor to the lighter and more graceful Rococo style that dominated French taste in the early 1700s.