Early Days:

Charles Andre Van Loo was born in Nice, France. Vanloo followed his brother Jean-Baptiste to Turin, and then to Rome in 1712, where he studied under Benedetto Luti and the sculptor Pierre Legros. Leaving Italy in 1723, he worked in Paris, and received the first prize for historical painting in 1727 — as did his future rival François Boucher. After again visiting Turin in 1727, he was employed by king Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, for whom he painted a series of subjects illustrative of Tasso. In 1734 he settled in Paris, and in 1735 became a member of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and rose rapidly in the hierarchy of the academy. He was decorated with the Order of Saint Michael and named First Painter to King Louis XV of France in 1762. He died in Paris on 15 July 1765.