BOULLOGNE, Louis the Younger

French painter. He was taught by his father, Louis Boullogne the Elder, together with his brother Bon Boullogne, and his sisters Geneviève (1645-1708) and Madeleine (1646-1710). Louis the Elder took part in the decoration of the Louvre and Versailles. He was one of the fourteen founders of the Painting Academy and gave his children a solid traditional formation.

In 1673 Louis the Younger won the Prix de RomeGLOSSARYA scholarship, founded concurrently with the French Academy in Rome (1666), that enabled prize-winning students at the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris to spend a period (usually 4 years) in Rome at the state's expense. Prizes for architecture began to be awarded regularly in 1723, and prizes for engravers and musicians were added in the 19th century. The prizes were meant to perpetuate the academic tradition and during the 18th and 19th centuries winning the award was the traditional stepping stone to the highest honours for painters and sculptors. Many distinguished artists (as well as many nonentities) were Prix de Rome winners, notably David, Fragonard, and Ingres among painters and Clodion, Girardon, and Houdon among sculptors. The prizes are still awarded and the system has been adopted by other countries. with CrossingGLOSSARYthe area of a church where the nave is intersected by the transept. the Rhine, which enabled him to go to the Académie de France in Rome, apparently when his brother Bon returned from there. In Italy he studied the works of Raphael and the Bolognese schoolGLOSSARYIn the most restricted sense, the works produced and the theories expounded by the late 16th- and early 17th-century Italian painters Lodovico Carracci and his cousins, the brothers Agostino and Annibale Carracci., and made copies of paintings for reproduction as tapestries by the GobelinsGLOSSARYFrench tapestry manufactory, named after a family of dyers and clothmakers who set up business on the outskirts of Paris in the 15th century. Their premises became a tapestry factory in the early 17th century, and in 1662 it was taken over by Louis XIV, who appointed Lebrun Director. Initially it made not only tapestries but also every kind of product (except carpets, which were woven at the Savonnerie factory) required for the furnishing of the royal palaces — its official title was Manufacture royale des meubles de la Couronne. The celebrated tapestry designed by Lebrun showing Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins (Gobelins Museum, Paris, 1663-75) gives a good idea of the range of its activities. In 1694 the factory was closed because of the king's financial difficulties, and although it reopened in 1699, thereafter it made only tapestries. For much of the 18th century it retained its position as the foremost tapestry manufactory in Europe. 0udry and Boucher successively held the post of Director (1733-70). The Gobelins continues in production today and houses a tapestry museum.. In Rome he proved a diligent student, winning a prize at the Accademia di San Luca for a drawing of Alexander Cutting the Gordian Knot.

Returning to France he worked in Versailles and the Invalids, where he painted (among other works) two of the Four Elements. In 1681 he joined the Academy in 1681 on presentation of its Auguste Orders to Close the Gates of Janus Temple (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Amiens). Appointed professor in 1694, he became director in 1722, and succeeded Coypel in 1725 as the "King's First Painter". Louis XIV had one year before raised him to nobility.

His works are preserved in many French museums, in particular in Versailles.