Drouais was the successor to Nattier as the chief portrait painter at the court of Louis XV. He portrayed most of the leading figures of his age, including the king and his two most famous mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry, as well as artists and leading members of the professional classes.
Drouais was born in Paris, the son of the painter Hubert Drouais (1699 - 1767), who was famous for his miniature portraits. Drouais was trained by his father and by other well-known painters, including Carle van Loo, Natoire and Boucher. He became a member of the Academy in 1758, and exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1755 to the year of his death.
Drouais was celebrated for his likenesses of aristocrats dressed in rustic costume, a current fashion, and for his representations of children, often in landscape settings.
François-Hubert Drouais
1727 - 1775
Paintings by François-Hubert Drouais
Although the grandest of the many portraits of Madame de Pompadour, this is also the most naturalistic image of her, which avoids the rigid formality or mythological trappings of much court portraiture. The former mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour had become an international celebrity by...
In this imposing portrait, designed to emphasis its sitter’s wealth and status, the eighteen-year-old comte de Vaudreuil (1740–1817) points at a map of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). His father was governor of the island, then a French colony, and the count earned...