TROY, de, French family of painters

Antoine de Troy (1608-1684) was a painter of modest renown in the Languedoc region. His elder son Jean de Troy (1638-1691) established an academy of art in Montpellier. He was long known only as an academic history painter, but 20th-century research has identified several fine portraits by him on the basis of style. Antoine's younger son François de Troy became a fashionable portrait painter in Paris, with a style of portraiture based on Flemish and Dutch models that included van Dyck and Rembrandt. The son of François, Jean-François de Troy, made his name as a painter of portraits, history subjects and tapestry designs, but he is known chiefly for his Rococo 'tableaux de modes', representing fashionable life and amorous encounters.