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(1) Louis Testelin
(b Paris, 1615; d Paris, 19 Aug 1665). Painter. Early in his career he became a specialist in decorative and allegorical motifs painted in grisaille, and he contributed to numerous decorative schemes for the Crown and for private clients in Paris, including work on the Palais Royal (1644), the Palais du Luxembourg, the Hôtel d’Avaux, the Hôtel de Guéméné and the Hôtel de Jars, as well as at the château of Fontainebleau (1646). Nothing of this work survives, but Guillet de Saint-Georges’s Mémoire gives a comprehensive list and description of paintings that range from 13 grisaille medallions of Roman emperors for the cabinet of Anne of Austria at Fontainebleau to a ceiling representing Rinaldo and Armida at the Hôtel de Jars; decorations and sacred histories painted for churches and monasteries in Paris (all destr. or untraced) are also mentioned. Testelin became a professor at the Académie Royale in 1650. Among his few surviving works are the Mays of 1652 and 1655, for Notre-Dame, Paris: the Raising of Tabitha (Arras, Mus. B.-A.) and a Flagellation of St Paul (in situ). The monumental composition of these two paintings shows the influence of Charles Le Brun, while their clear colouring and the classicism of the figures call to mind the work of Eustache Le Sueur.
Part of the Testelin family
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