François Boucher

François Boucher (1703–1770) was the defining painter of French Rococo, working in Paris where he was born and died. Trained first by his father, a minor painter, and briefly by François Lemoyne, he won the Prix de Rome in 1720 and eventually studied in Italy in the mid-1720s. Back in Paris he rose swiftly through the Académie royale, becoming Rector and later Premier Peintre du Roi in 1765, while also serving as inspector at the Gobelins tapestry works and designing for Beauvais, the theatre, and royal residences.