Jean Baptiste Pillement Biography
Jean-Baptiste Pillement was born on 24 May 1728 in Lyon. He was best known for his delicate and exquisite landscapes, but his importance lies mainly in his engravings. In 1743, at just 15 years old, he moved from Lyon to Paris and was hired by Jean-Baptiste Oudry as an apprentice designer at the "Manufacture de Beauvais". Subsequently, in 1745 he left for Madrid, where he found work as a designer and painter. In this period he created rustic landscapes, such as shepherds accompanied by their goats and sheep wrapped in the sun, water mills, rocky reliefs enriched by lush vegetation and evocative ruins of an ancient bridge. In 1763, Pillement went to Vienna, where he was employed at the imperial court of Maria Theresa and Francis I and worked in one of the Laxenburg castles. In 1765 he left Vienna for Warsaw, where his many projects included the decoration of the Royal Castle in Warsaw and the Ujazdowski Castle, his largest project, commissioned by King Stanisław II Augustus. Finally, in 1800, Pillement returned to Lyon, where he continued to paint and draw for the silk industry and teach at the Academy founded by Napoleon. Jean-Baptiste Pillement died in Lyon on 26 April 1808.
