Pierre Mignard I

For much of Louis XIV's reign Pierre Mignard was the great rival of Charles Le Brun, the all-powerful director of the royal Academy who controlled art at Versailles. Mignard, back from a long and successful stint in Rome, refused to join Le Brun's Academy and set himself up as the opposition.

He was above all a portraitist, flattering, elegant, and much in demand among court ladies, who liked how he dressed them as goddesses. He also painted the dome of the Val-de-Grace church in Paris, a huge fresco he was so proud of that the playwright Moliere wrote a whole poem praising it.

He had to wait for his rival to die. When Le Brun went in 1690, the ageing Mignard swept up all his offices at once, first painter to the king and director of the Academy, in a single stroke. He held them for his last five years.