Georges de La Tour

Georges de La Tour (1593 -1652) was born in Vic-sur-Seille, Lorraine, while it was still part of the Holy Roman Empire and he died, along with his family, in 1652 in Lunéville, France during an epidemic. De La Tour ran a busy workshop, providing paintings for the Dukes of Lorraine but more often for the local bourgeoisie. During his career he also received the title “Painter to the King” of France. He is known for his nuits, night scenes utilizing a Baroque technique called ‘tenebrism’, like that developed by Caravaggio and the Utrecht School. There are no records to show how he encountered ‘tenebrism’ or even that he travelled to Italy or to the Netherlands. After his death in 1652, the artist and his works were increasingly forgotten. The importance and success of Georges de La Tour were not again recognized until an exhibition of his works at the Orangerie des Tuileries in Paris in 1934. Today he is considered one of the greatest and most popular painters of the seventeenth century.