Lemoine, Francois

Lemoine, Francois a celebrated French painter of the 18th celntury, was born at Paris in 1688. He was the pupil of Louis Galloche, early distinguished himself, and in 1718 was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Painting. His great reputation at this time is due mainly to his painting, in oil, of the Transfiguration of Christ on the ceiling of the choir of the Church des Jacobins, Rue du Bacq. In 1724 Lemoine visited Italy, and in the year following, on his return to France, was made professor of painting in the Academy. Louis XV appointed him in 1736 his principal painter, with a salary of 4100 francs, in the place of Louis de Boullogne, deceased. The first of Lemoine's great works was the cupola of the chapel of the Virgin in St. Sulpice, in fresco, which he commenced in 1729 — a work of three years' labor. His masterpiece, however, is the Apotheosis of Hercules, painted in oil on canvas pasted on the ceiling of the Salon d'Hercule at Versailles, commenced in 1732, and finished in 1736. He committed suicide June 4, 1737. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 30:617, English Cyclopaedia, s.v.