Biography
Santerre was born at Magny-en-Vexin, near Pontoise. A pupil of Bon Boullogne, he began his painting career at a portraitist, with a notable work being a portrait of Marie Leszczyńska with the Maison de St Cyr in the background (now at the musée de Versailles). He won a major reputation thanks to his academies. His most notable work is his Susanna Bathing (Louvre), the diploma work executed by him in 1704, when he was received into the Académie (though the version now in the Louvre seems to be a copy by Santerre of the original). Although his religious paintings lacked inspiration, the Susanna contributed to Santerre's fifty-year reputation as a painter of the erotic nude, in which field he was the forerunner to François Boucher (1730–1770) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806). The Susanna and his Portrait of a Lady in Venetian Costume (Louvre) give a good impression of Santerre's taste and of his elaborate, refined and careful method. He died at Paris.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Baptiste Santerre
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