MANSART, FAMILY. - A family of Parisian artists in the 17th–18th centuries. Jean (d. 1618), a wood sculptor, was appointed in 1606 “sculpteur des bâtiments du roi.” Among the most important artists of the Mansart family are:
FRANÇOIS MANSART, architect, b. in Paris on 23 Jan 1598, d. there on 23 July 1666. A pupil of the architect Germain Gathier, with whom he collaborated on the château of Rennes, he built in 1626 the château of Balleroy in Normandy, in 1630 the château of Berny (Seine), and between 1632–34 the church of the Filles de la Visitation de Ste-Marie in Paris, where he settled permanently.
From 1633 is the Hôtel d’Albret, from 1642–51 the château of Maisons-Laffitte—considered the masterpiece of French civil architecture of the 17th century—and from 1642 the Mazarin Gallery. Between 1645 and 1665 Mansart built the abbatial church of Val-de-Grâce. He was esteemed by his contemporaries as one of the greatest national architects; remaining tied to the French tradition, he employed a moderate classicism, with a sure and refined use of space and a severe measure in decoration.
A pupil of François Mansart was his nephew Jules-Hardouin Mansart, b. in Paris on 16 Apr. 1646, d. at Marly on 11 May 1708. Very young, as early as 1674 he became one of the royal architects, acquiring a prominent position: in 1675 he was “architecte des bâtiments du roi,” and in 1699 he was created Baron of Jouy and Count of Sagonne. His name is linked to all the constructions of Louis XIV and his time; owing to the favors he enjoyed, he acted as a virtual dictator over French architecture in the late 17th century. From his uncle he learned the classicizing taste of Italian tradition, while following the stylistic evolution of French art of the 17th century, influenced also by Louis Le Vau, whose work he continued at the château of Versailles, executing in 1678 the façade toward the park, the interiors, and the pavilions in the garden, down to 1700. To him are owed numerous châteaux, at Clagny, at Marly-le-Roi, at Choisy-le-Roi, at Saint-Cloud, at Lunéville, as well as the expansion of the Palais-Royal in Paris with the erection of the Galerie d’Énée, and important religious buildings such as the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Versailles (1684–86) and the church of the Invalides in Paris (1693–1706): monumental works, yet of clear and simple conception, with the rejection of any exuberant decoration.