Roger de Piles's L'Abrégé de la vie des peintres...avec un traité du peintre parfait (The Art of Painting and the Lives of the Painters), was a major art biography of painters. It was written by the French spy Roger de Piles. In 1692, during the War of the League of Augsburg, he was arrested in the Hague carrying a false passport and imprisoned for the next five years, where he wrote his L'Abrégé in 7 parts; 1) Sketch of the perfect painter, 2) Greek painters; 3) Painters from Rome & Florence; 4) Painters from Venice; 5) Painters from Lombardy; 6) Painters from Germany and the Low Countries; 7) Painters from France and ending with his famous "Balance of painters". The book was finally published in 1699 following his appointment as Conseiller Honoraire to the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris.
Part 7, Painters from France, includes in order of appearance in the text, the following list of artists:
Jean Cousin the Elder (1500–1570), p 447 Jacob Bunel (1568–1614), p 449 Toussaint Dubreuil (1561–1602), p 449 Martin Fréminet (1567–1619), p 449 Ferdinand Elle (1570–1637), p 450 Quentin Varin (1584–1647), p 451 Jacques Blanchard (1600–1638), p 451 Simon Vouet (1590–1649), p 453 Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), p 457 François Perrier (painter) (1590–1650), p 470 Jacques Stella (1596–1657), p 472 Martin de Charmois (1609–1661), p 475 Eustache Le Sueur (1616–1655), p 477 Laurent de La Hyre (1606–1656), p 479 Michel Dorigny (1617–1663), p 483 Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy (1611–1668), p 483 Nicolas Mignard (1606–1668), p 490 Claude Vignon (1593–1670), p 491 Sébastien Bourdon (1616–1671), p 492 Simon Francois (1606–1671), p 495 Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1673), p 497 Jean Baptiste de Champaigne (1631–1680), p 503 Nicolas-Pierre Loir (1624–1679), p 504 Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), p 505 Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), p 515 Claude Lorrain (1604–1682), p 521 Noël Coypel (1628–1707), p 523 Élisabeth Sophie Chéron (1648–1711), p 532 Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), p 542 External links
Online version (French) of 1715 version Abregé de la Vie des peintres By Roger de Piles on Google Books Online version (French) of 1715 Abregé de la Vie des peintres by Roger de Piles on Google Books Version (Dutch) of 1725 translated by Johannes Verhoek "Beknopt verhaal van het Leven der Vermaardste Schilders" by Roger de Piles at the University of Utrecht