Simon Vouet was the son of a humble painter, but his youth was anything but humble as he visited Constantinople when he was very young and seems to have spent time in London, where he worked on portraits. In 1612 he travelled to Venice and two years later he settled in Rome. His interest in Caravaggio was awakened there and he mixed with artists of the Emilia Romagna circle, particularly with Giovanni Lanfranco; he gained considerable standing and was protected by some of the most important patrons of that time, including Cardinal Barberini, Cosimo del Pozzo and Marino. He travelled through Italy and produced paintings in Genoa (1920), Modena and Bologna (1621). In 1624 he was elected as principal of the Academy of San Marcos, where he turned his back on tenebrism to adopt a personal interpretation of Neo-Venetianism, similar in style in certain aspects to the style of Nicolas Poussin.

In 1627 he returned to France, where he became the most influential of the court artists, and was particularly renowned for his decoration and as master of the generation of artists who flourished in the court of Louis XIV, such as Charles Le Brun and Pierre Mignard.  He was involved in setting up the French Academy in 1684, but died the following year. He made a fundamental contribution to the setting up of the French grand style, a mix of full Baroque and Classicism, which he imbued with great elegance. His compositions, widely distributed as prints, were widely copied throughout the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Alfonso Pérez Sánchez