MIGNARD, Pierre, called Mignard Le Romain. - Born at Troyes on 17 Nov. 1612, died at Paris on 30 May 1695. Brother of the painter Nicolas M., he entered the studio of Jean Boucher in Bourges at the age of 14; later he was a pupil of François Gentil in Troyes: at 15 he frescoed the chapel of the Château de Courbet-en-Brie for the marshal de Vitry, and with his support was able to move to Paris as a pupil of the celebrated Vouet, and from there to Rome, where he remained 20 years in contact with the highest society.
With Dufresnoy, in 1654, he made a long journey to Venice, Bologna, Parma, Modena, made copies from the Farnese Gallery for the bishop of Lyon, executed portraits of kings, princes, prelates, and above all paintings of Madonnas (the celebrated Mignardes). He felt the influence of the Bolognese, of Correggio and of the Venetians, as attested by the copies cited in an inventory of 1603 and 3 volumes of his drawings. Having returned to France, thanks to his skill as a portraitist, he received the appointment as court painter and was the rival of Le Brun, whom he succeeded only in 1690. But already in 1664 he had been named director of the Academy of St. Luke, and in 1666, with Dufresnoy, he had completed, after three years of work, the vast decoration of the dome of Val-de-Grâce, crowded with saints, angels, apostles, prophets around the Trinity. Moreover he had shown himself a festive colorist in the decoration of the Hervart Palace, in the Small Gallery of Fontainebleau and at St-Cloud. In 1687 he was made a noble, and director of the court sculptors, of the Royal Academy and of the Gobelins, as well as of the King's Galleries. But the best of M.'s art is to be sought, beyond the most sweet Madonnas, in the portraits in which, anticipating the grace of the eighteenth century, he acutely expressed the worldly attitude of contemporary society.