16 facts about Niclas Lafrensen

Niklas Lafrensen (30 October 1737 – 6 December 1807) was a Swedish genre and miniature painter. Active in Paris and Stockholm, Lafrensen is considered one of the chief European miniaturist of the second half of the 18th century.

Niklas Lafrensen (known in French as Nicolas Lavreince) was the son of painter Niklas Lafrensen the Elder and Magdalena Stuur. His daddy was a skilled miniature portrait painter, popular at the Swedish court. Lafrensen time-honored his very old training from him. His daddy thought him miniature painting as capably as the gouache technique. Lafrensen the younger was in Paris from 1762 to 1769. In 1773 he became a advocate of the Painter and Sculptor Academy. In Paris, he came under the have emotional impact of the French Rococo, which suited his temperament. He chose to represent realizable topics in painting, as in opposition to subjects relating to the olden world. This granted him popularity in the middle of the public. By contrast, he wasn’t a favorite of the intellectuals and pedagogues. Upon his reward to Stockholm, he was appointed Royal Court Miniature Painter, and was commissioned a dozen miniature portraits by Prince Gustav. Lafrensen was accepted in the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, but innovative passed over.

He is said to have become incensed that he had been passed on peak of by his professors, and that was the defense he left Sweden in 1774 and re-settled in Paris, where for 17 years worked as an artist below the say Lavreince. In 1791 Lafrensen was motivated to leave France during the French Revolution, and came house to Sweden and painted a portrait of (now) King Gustav III rudely before his death. In the latter ration of his energy his artistic output was scarce.

Besides miniatures, Lafrensen painted mostly gouache. Lafrensen is represented in a number of Swedish and foreign museums, including a dozen of his works at The Louvre. The Nationalmuseum owns practically 50 of his miniatures and 13 gouaches, including Three Ladies Who Make Music, Music Making Men and Women in Landscape and Card Gaming Ladies.