ATTIRET, JEAN-DENIS. — Jesuit painter and missionary, born at Dôle on 31 July 1702, died at Beijing on 8 December 1768. Trained in the art of painting within his family and perfected in Rome, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1735 as a coadjutor brother and, two years later, departed for Beijing, where artists were much in demand in order to preserve the emperor’s benevolence toward Christianity and the toleration of the apostolate, and where the Italian confrere G. Castiglione (v.) was already present. His first painting, an Adoration of the Magi, pleased the emperor Kien-long so much that he summoned A. to the palace to practise his art there. This he did with the utmost patience, renouncing his own taste in order to adapt himself to the Chinese preference for watercolours and for the minutiae of landscapes and decorations; but in this way he also fully won the esteem and affection of the sovereign, who always wanted him with him on his journeys, had him paint portraits of the Tartar princes, and intended to make him a mandarin. A., however, succeeded in diverting this honour from himself. His funeral was held at the expense of the imperial treasury.
Almost all his works, preserved in the ancient imperial palaces, are known only from descriptions; however, the series of sixteen battles of the Chinese against the Tartars was later engraved in France by Cochin, in 1774. An Guardian Angel, preserved in the church of Beijing, is also known. A long letter by him is likewise extant, in which he describes his journey and the imperial palaces, published in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, ed. Aimé Martin, III, Paris 1843, pp. 786–95.
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