Le Nain Brothers (Antoine, c.(1588-48), Mathie, c.(1607-77), Louis (1593 - 1648)

• The three Le Nain brothers were French painters in 17th-century.
• They produced genre works, portraits and portrait miniatures.
• The brothers were born in or near Laon in northern France.
• By 1630, all three lived in Paris, where they shared the studio founded by Antoine.
• Antoine was admitted to the Paris painters' guild, enabling his two brothers to train under him without paying fees.
• Within a few years they were receiving important commissions.
• The Le Nains's interest in genre and peasant subjects began around 1640.
• In 1648 the three brothers were received into the Académie de peinture et de sculpture on the year of its founding.
• Antoine and Louis died in 1648.
• Mathieu lived until 1677, and appears to have painted until the mid-1650s.
• The displayed painting is a crop from: Peasant Interioir with an Old Flute Player, c. 1642.
• Next