Life

Stella was born in Lyon. His father was François Stella, a painter and merchant of Flemish origin, but he died too soon to train Jacques in painting. Jacques's siblings included François (another painter), Françoise (a pastel artist) and Madeleine (a sculptor and the mother of artists). Jacques Stella trained in Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 before spending the period from 1616 to 1621 in the court of Cosimo II de Medici in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, working alongside Jacques Callot

Jacques Callot

Jacques Callot was a baroque printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine . He is an important figure in the development of the old master print...

 - Florentine art is a strong influence on all Stella's work. On Cosimo's death in 1621 Stella moved to Rome, where he spent the next 10 years and won a reputation thanks to his paintings, small engravings and painted work on stones (onyx

Onyx

Onyx is a banded variety of chalcedony. The colors of its bands range from white to almost every color . Commonly, specimens of onyx contain bands of black and/or white.-Etymology:...

, lapis-lazuli or simply slate). Particularly working for pope Urban VIII

Pope Urban VIII

Pope Urban VIII , born Maffeo Barberini, was pope from 1623 to 1644. He was the last pope to expand the papal territory by force of arms, and was a prominent patron of the arts and reformer of Church missions...

, Stella was influenced in Rome by classicism and more specifically by the art of Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...

, with whom he became an intimate friend.

Returning to Lyon in 1634 before moving to Paris a year later, Stella was presented to Louis XIII by cardinal Richelieu. The king made him peintre du roi (meaning he lived from then on in the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

) and granted him a pension of 1000 livres. He returned many times to the theme of the childhood of Christ - five different versions by him of "Jesus discovered by his parents in the temple" exist. He took on many commissions and also decorated the chapelle Saint-Louis at the château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

The Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a royal palace in the commune of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the département of Yvelines, about 19 km west of Paris, France. Today, it houses the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale ....

 and the choir of the église Saint-François-Xavier

Saint-François Xavier des Missions étrangères

Saint-François Xavier des Missions étrangères is a church and parish in the 7th arrondissement of Paris dedicated to Francis Xavier...

 (1641–42) alongside Poussin and Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...

. From 1644 he took part in the decoration of the Palais-Cardinal. Towards the end of his life he devoted himself more and more to drawing. As well as his painting and drawing he was a major art collector throughout his life, building a collection of paintings by Poussin and Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

 and drawings by Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

 and Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

. He died in Paris.

Reception

Audacious and varied, his work moved easily between the realism of direct observation, the antique spirit and a higher religious inspiration. After his death his paintings and engravings were often sold as works by Poussin. His work was often engraved, allowing his art to be reach a wide audience, especially after his death under the impetus of his niece and heiress, the artist Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella (died 1697). A retrospective of his work occurred at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon

The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...

 from 17 November 2006 to 19 February 2007, before touring to the Musée des Augustins

Musée des Augustins

The Musée des Augustins de Toulouse is a fine arts museum in Toulouse, France which conserves a collection of sculpture and paintings from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century...

 at Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

 from 17 March to 18 June 2007.

Selected works

• Solomon
  Solomon
  Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
  
   sacrificing to idols (c 1650), oil on canvas, 98 cm x 142 cm, musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
  Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon
  The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...
  
  .
• Massacre of the Innocents
  Massacre of the Innocents
  The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth...
  
  , grisaille
  Grisaille
  Grisaille is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco...
  
   (attributed to him), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
  Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
  The musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is an art museum in Rouen, northern France. Founded in 1801 by Napoleon I, its current building was built between 1880 and 1888 and completely renovated in 1994...
  
  .

External links

• Jacques Stella on Artcyclopedia