François Quesnel was a French painter of Scottish extraction.

The son of the French painter Pierre Quesnel

Pierre Quesnel

Pierre Quesnel was a 16th-century French artist who worked in Scotland.Pierre worked in Scotland for Mary of Guise and James V. He is listed as an Usher in Guise's household and is identified as the queen's painter in the Scottish Treasurer's Accounts...

 and his Scottish wife Madeleine Digby, born in Edinburgh while his father worked for Mary of Guise

Mary of Guise

Mary of Guise was a queen consort of Scotland as the second spouse of King James V. She was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, and served as regent of Scotland in her daughter's name from 1554 to 1560...

, Quesnel found patronage at the French court of Catherine de Medici and her son, Henri III

Henry III of France

Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...

 (illustration). He married Charlotte Richandeau, with whom he had four children. A widower, he remarried in 1584 Marguerite Le Masson, who gave him ten more children, among whom were Nicolas and Augustin, painters, and Jacques, bookseller.
In Paris he worked as a decorator and a designer of cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

s for tapestry

Tapestry

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

, but it is as a portrait painter, both in oils and in delicately tinted pencil or red and black chalk he is chiefly remembered. Some portraits were engraved by Thomas de Leu and Michel Lasne, and in 1609 he drew a map of Paris for engraving by Pierre Vallet. He died in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Tapestry designs

In 1585 François provided a cartoon for a tapestry of Christ preaching on the steps of the Temple for the Church of Saint Madeleine in Paris. In August 1586, François contracted to provide designs for tapestries of the Life of the Virgin for Renée of Guise Lorraine, Abbess of the Convent of Saint-Pierre-les-Dames at Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

 and sister of his father's employer in Scotland, Mary of Guise (who was buried in the Convent). The eight tapestries and his cartoons were to be 1.5 ell

Ell

An ell , is a unit of measurement, approximating the length of a man's arm.Several national forms existed, with different lengths, includingthe Scottish ell ,the Flemish ell ,the French ell...

s in height, and 10.25 ells in length. Each was to include the heraldy of the Abbess in the centre. The cost of this design work was 5 ecu sol

ECU

ECU may refer to:Automotive terms* Electronic control unit, a generic term for any embedded system that controls one or more of the electrical systems or subsystems in a motor vehicle...

s per Paris ell. These tapestries following his designs were woven in Paris.

External links and images

• Several portrait drawings, some identified sitters, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
• Engraving of François Quesnel by Pierre Brebiette
  Pierre Brébiette
  Pierre Brébiette was a French painter, who produced several drawings but has left only one signed and identified work. That work, an oil on canvas entitled The Rape of Proserpina by Pluto, is now in the Picot collection within the collections of the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie de...
  
  , Joconde database, with motto 'Quo pedibus Ferri non queo mente Feror.'
• Portrait of a Noblewoman (attributed), Detroit Institute of Arts
• Portrait of a Bearded Man (attributed), Cleveland Museum of Art
• Portrait of a Bearded Man (attributed, Royal Collection
• Portrait of a Nobleman, 1589 (attributed), Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina
• Biography of Quesnel (in French)