Шарль Лебрен

For a stretch of the 17th century, one man effectively controlled the look of everything the French crown produced. Charles Le Brun was named Premier Peintre du Roi, First Painter to Louis XIV, and the king is said to have called him the greatest French artist of all time.

The title came with real power. From 1663 Le Brun ran the Gobelins in Paris, a royal workshop that grew into a vast factory turning out tapestries, furniture and silver for the palaces, and he directed the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, shaping how a whole generation of artists was trained. Little that furnished a royal residence escaped his design.

His grandest surviving work is at Versailles. Le Brun painted the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors, the long gallery of arched windows and glass where the court gathered, covering it with scenes that glorified the reign of Louis XIV himself. When his patron the finance minister Colbert died and a rival gained the king's ear, Le Brun's influence faded, though he kept his titles until his own death in 1690.