Jean Girardet 1709-1778 Study For A Monk Drawing In Black Chalk

Jean Girardet1709-1778
Study for a monk
Black chalk drawing
Fold trace in the middle of the drawing

Jean Girardet was successively a seminarian, a law student, a cavalry officer, then learned painting at the Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Nancy, under the direction of Claude Charles (1661-1747). He carried out various decorative works in Nancy before joining Duke François III in Florence in 1738 where he completed his studies. In 1748, he returned to Lorraine in the service of Stanislas Leszczynski, former King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine and Bar for life by the grace of his son-in-law Louis XV of France and Cardinal Fleury. Girardet became "Painter in Ordinary to the King of Poland" in 1758. A talented portraitist, he was the official painter of Stanislas Leszczynski, whom he immortalized from all angles, as well as that of people of the court and artists and the Lorraine and Barrois nobility. He also excelled in large decorative painting as well as in religious paintings. His works adorn the Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Toul, the churches of Lunéville, Chanteheux, Commercy, Verdun and Metz. He is also the author of one of the first paintings dedicated to the Sacred Heart at the Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Toul. In the absence of a painting academy, the teaching of fine arts continued within the workshops. The most sought-after was that of Jean Girardet in Lunéville, which welcomed some 140 students. In 1758, he was named "First Painter". In 1766, upon Stanislas's death, the Queen of France, Marie Leszczynska, Stanislas's only surviving daughter, took him into her service. Girardet continued his work at Versailles but returned fairly quickly to Nancy where he died in his house at 31, rue Saint-Jean.