Gaspar Antoine de Bois-Clair, ca. (1654–1704)

• Was a French artist.
• He was born at St. Bonnet le Chateau, Lyon ca. 1654.
• Gaspar became first a Jesuit and then a Reformist priest while pursuing avocations as both a writer and a painter.
• He came to Copenhagen in 1690, having converted 

to Lutheranism and been appointed “French Chaplain” to the Court of King Christian V.

• Among his publications while at the Danish court were a tri-lingual Catechism, religious poems, and royal panegyrics.

• Bois-Clair appears to have stayed in Denmark for the remainder of his life, appearing on court rolls until his deth early in 1704.

Despite his active career in religious circles, Bois-Clair is best known today as a painter.

• But Bois-Clair is most celebrated today for a single, 

quite unusual work, his Double Portrait of Frederik IV as Prince and his sister Sophie Hedevig at Rosenborg Castle.

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