Biography

Van Loo, a family of painters of Dutch descent working in France, of whom the most important were Jean Baptiste, Carle and Louis Michel.

Louis Michel van Loo was the son of Jean Baptiste and the brother of three further painters. Like his uncle Carle, who was only two years his elder, he was Jean Baptiste's pupil in Turin and Rome, and he won a prize at the Academy in Paris in 1725. With his uncle he went to Rome in 1727-32, but in 1736 he became court painter in Madrid where he painted many portraits. He was a Founder-Member of the Academy in Madrid in 1752, but he returned to Paris in 1753, and made many versions of the state portraits of Louis XV for presentation to the Courts of Europe. In 1765 he succeeded his uncle as Director of the special school of the French academy known as the École Royale des Élèves Protégés.