Louise Moillon

Lesley Stevenson

This stunning volume is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to French artist Louise Moillon.

The life and career of Louise Moillon (1609/10–1696) offers a fascinating case study of a supremely talented artist whose posthumous reputation has been mired in invisibility. Born and raised in Paris, Moillon was the sole woman in a circle of Calvinist Protestant émigrés who brought their tradition of still-life painting with them from Flanders. During her lifetime, she was able to enjoy a degree of professional independence and attract enough recognition to be regarded as on a level with her male counterparts, yet her exquisite work and enigmatic story are little known today.

This illustrated biography examines some of the ways in which Moillon’s story has been represented since the revival of interest in her work and draws on recent scholarship to situate the painter in her rightful place. Offering a sweeping exploration of the genre of still life, this book also chronicles how a woman in early modern France was able to capture the attention of the artistic world while dissecting why her prominence waned in the centuries following her death. 

Lesley Stevenson is a freelance lecturer, consultant, and writer.

“The book’s accessibility—in language, length and level of prior knowledge required—broadens its possible reach beyond an academic audience and is a welcome addition to scholarship on seventeenth-century French art production and the women whose careers must be included in this story.”
—Tori Champion, The Burlington Magazine

“This multifaceted study brings into focus the cultural shifts between the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV and the consumption of still-life painting in France and the Low Countries. . . . The text is a pleasure to read, and the volume is nicely designed and well-illustrated. Stevenson, who is known for her work on later art, provides a remarkably clear and balanced historical account.”
—P. Emison, Choice

“Louise Moillon’s works exude an atmosphere of contemplation and serenity: associations with the shaping of things by time come to mind. . . . Lesley Stevenson examines her artistic trajectory in this nimble, elegant book which will bring surprises.”
—Blaise Ducos, Musée du Louvre, Chief Curator, Dutch & Flemish Painting

“Louise Moillon rose out of a familial workshop in a Protestant colony of Paris’ Saint-Germain-des-Prés to make it into Georges de Scudéry’s famed musée imaginaire. Lesley Stevenson’s beautifully contextualized story shows how Moillon relied on the domestic, the intimate and the humble to make her exquisite trompe l’oeil works truly unique.”
—Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier, Emerita Professor of Art History, The American University of Paris

Additional titles in this series.

112 pages
7 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches
40 color and 1 b/w illustrations
ISBN 978-1-60606-902-8
hardcover

Getty Publications
Imprint: Getty Publications
Series: Illuminating Women Artists

2024