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(2) Henri Testelin
(b Paris, 1616; d The Hague, 17 April 1695). Painter, printmaker and writer, brother of (1) Louis Testelin. As a member of the circle of Charles Le Brun, he endorsed his connection with the Académie Royale by submitting an allegorical portrait of Louis XIV in Childhood as Patron of the Arts (Versailles, Château) as his morceau de réception. He was secretary of the Académie from 1650 and a professor from 1656. He produced several tapestry cartoons based on designs by Le Brun for the Gobelins, including the Wedding of Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa on 9 June 1660 (before 1665) and the Founding of the Académie des Sciences and the Observatory in 1666 (both Versailles, Château). He was active also as a court portrait painter, exhibiting portraits of Louis XIV as Patron of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (exh. Salon 1673; Versailles, Château) and of Maria-Theresa, Queen of France (exh. Salon 1673; untraced). Also at the Salon of 1673 he showed a history painting, Time Clipping Cupid’s Wings (untraced). In 1680 he published his Sentiments des plus habiles peintres, which reflects the body of academic theory established by Le Brun and the Académie Royale. As a Protestant, Testelin was excluded from the Académie in 1681, and he left France to settle in the Netherlands. His portraits show the influence of Jean Nocret and of Le Brun, although the drawing is harsher, the attitudes stiffer and the colour less subtle.
Part of the Testelin family
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