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Biographies
SIMON VOUET : A TALENTED 17th CENTURY ARTIST
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Simon Vouet was born in Paris on January 9th 1590, the son of Laurent Vouet, a painter attached to the court of King Henri IV.
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He showed precocious talents and went to England at 14 first to produce the portrait of a French lady who had sought refuge in London and settled there for a while working for many noblemen. King Charles I was notably interested in hiring him. Meanwhile he painted a ceiling in the palace of Oatland but in 1611, Vouet was on a trip to Turkey accompanying the French ambassador Harlay de Sausay. After leaving Constantinople, he paid a visit to Venice and stopped in 1613 in Rome where he remained until 1627. He first worked as a portrait painter and then painted religious and genre scenes under the influence of Caravaggio.
Some of his major Roman works were the Fortune Teller, now in Ottawa, painted in 1618 and David with the head of Goliath, two paintings in a style typical of Caravaggio as well as the Birth of the Virgin, now in Rome.
Vouet was working with Claude Vignon in Rome as well as with other French expatriates at that time.
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